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GEORGE  IV.  — Vol.  vi.    Frontispiece. 


-SL/1 

THE  POPULAR 


BY 

CHARLES    KNIGHT. 
VOLUME  VI. 


FROM  THE  DEFENCE  OF  THE  COUNTRY  BY  FOREIGN  TROOPS, 

1756,  TO  THE  ASSASSINATION  OF  MARAT  BY 

CHARLOTTE  CORD  AY,  1793. 


First  American  Edition. 


NEW  YORK: 

JOHN    WURTELE    LOVELL, 
1881. 


CONTENTS. 


CHAPTER  I.— A.D.  1755  to  A.D.  1757. 

Dread  of  invasion. — Defence  of  the  country  by  foreign  troops. — French  fleet  at  Minorct. 
— Admiral  Byng — Surrender  of  St.  Philip,  in  Minorca. — Popular  rage  against  Byng. 
— Commencement  of  the  Seven  Years'  War.— Successes  of  Frederick  of  Prussia. — 
Household  of  George,  prince  of  Wales. —  Changes  of  Ministry. — Newcastle  retires. — 
Administration  of  the  duke  of  Devonshire  and  Mr.  Pitt. — Altered  tone  of  the  king's 
speech. — Militia  Bill. — Foreign  troops  sent  home. — Subsidy  to  the  king  of  Prussia. — 
Trial  of  Byng. — His  execution. — Pitt  and  Legge  dismissed  from  their  employments. 
— National  feeling. — Coalition  of  Newcastle  and  Pitt. — Affairs  of  India. — Black  Hole 
at  Calcutta. — Surajah  Dowlah  occupies  Calcutta. — It  is  re-taken  by  Clive  and  Wat« 
son. — The  battle  of  Plassey. — Surajah  Dowlah  deposed  and  killed. — Meer  Jaffier 
Subahdar  of  Bengal. — Establishment  of  the  British  ascendancy  in  India. 

Page    13—3* 

CHAPTER  II.— A. D.  1757  to  A.D.  1760. 

The  Administration. — Pitt's  sole  conduct  of  the  war  and  of  foreign  affairs. — Frederick's 
second  campaign. — Victory  of  Prague. — Defeat  at  Kolin. — Failure  at  Rochefort. — • 
Convention  of  Closter-Seven. — Failure  of  expedition  against  Louisbourg. — Riots 
about  the  Militia  Act. — Frederick's  victory  of  Rosbach. — Subsidy  to  Prussia. — Cher- 
bourg taken,  and  its  works  demolished. — St.  Maloes. — Operations  on  the  African 
Coast. —  Successful  expedition  against  Louisbourg. — The  turning  point  in  Pitt's  Ad- 
ministration.— Frederick's  third  campaign. — Zorndorf. — Hochkirchen. — Wolfe  ap- 
pointed to  command  an  expedition  to  Quebec. — The  battle  of  Minden. — Canada. — 
Operations  in  North  America. — Wolfe  in  the  St.  Lawrence. — His  desponding  letter. — 
Heights  of  Abraham.  — Death  of  Wolfe. — Quebec  surrendered. — Hawke's  victory  in 
Quiberon  Bay. — Death  of  George  the  Second 3J — 49 

CHAPTER    III.— A.D.  1760  to  A.D.  1763. 

Accession  of  George  III. — His  education  and  character. — Lord  Bute. — The  king's  first 
speech. — Policy  of  the  new  reign. — Independence  of  the  Judges. — The  new  Parlia- 
ment.— The  king's  marriage. — Coronation. — Negotiations  for  peace. — Warlike  opera- 
tions.— Affairs  of  the  Continent. — Frederick  of  Prussia. — Negotiations  broken  off. — 
The  Family  Compact. — Resignation  of  Mr.  Pitt. — His  pension. — Debates  in  Parlia- 
ment.— War  declared  against  Spain. — Conquest  of  the  Havannah,  and  other  successes. 
— Preliminaries  of  peace  signed. — The  Peace  of  Paris. — Conclusion  of  the  Seven 
Year's  War. — The  cost  of  the  war,  and  its  uses.  .  •  .  .  •  50 — 69 


6  CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER  IV.— A.D.  1763  to  A.D.  1765. 

Lord  Bute  Prime  Minister. — Policy  of  the  Favourite. — John  Wilkes. — Lord  Bute  resigns. 
— George  Grenville's  Ministry. — "North  Briton,"  No.  45. —  Arrest  of  Wilkes.— 
Negotiations  for  Mr.  Pitt's  return  to  power. — The  king's  desire  to  govern. — The 
Wilkite  agitation. — Hogarth,  Wiikes,  and  Churchill. — Wilkes  ordered  to  be  prose- 
cuted.— Expelled  the  House  of  Commons. — Great  Debates  on  General  Warrants.— 
Officers  dismissed  for  votes  in  Parliament,— Restrictions  on  the  American  Colonies. — 
Grenville's  Resolution  on  American  Taxation. — The  Stamp  Act  passed.— Resist- 
ance in  America. — Motives  for  passing  the  Stamp  Act.  •  .  .  Page  70—86 

CHAPTER  V.— A.D.  1765  to  A.D.  1768. 

Illness  of  the  king. — The  Regency  Bill. — Overtures  to  Pitt. — He  declines  office.— Gren- 
ville  and  Bedford. — The  Rockingham  Administration. — Disturbances  in  America. — 
Parliament. — Debates  on  the  Stamp  Act. — Pitt  contends  for  its  Repeal. — Examina- 
tion of  Dr.  Franklin. — Declaratory  Bill  as  to  rights  over  the  Colonies. — Repeal  of  the 
Stamp  Act. — Weakness  of  the  Rockingham  Administration. — They  quit  office. — Pitt 
created  earl  of  Chatham. — His  loss  of  popularity. — His  plans  for  great  measures. — 
Embargo  on  Corn. — Chatham's  illness. — Disorganization  of  his  ministry. — Parliament 
dissolved 87 — loa 

CHAPTER  VI.— A.D.  1768  to  A.D.  1770. 

New  Parliament. — Non-publication  of  Debates. — Wilkes  returned  for  Middlesex. — 
Riots. — Sentence  upon  Wilkes. — His  expulsions  from  Parliament  and  re-elections. — 
Debates  on  the  privileges  of  the  Commons. — The  letters  of  Junius. — Personalities  of 
Junius. — His  attacks  on  the  duke  of  Grafton. — Private  letters  of  Junius. — His  attack 
on  the  duke  of  Bedford. — Address  of  Junius  to  the  king. — Opening  of  Parliament. — 
Lord  Chatham. — Chatham's  speech  on  the  Address. — Schism  in  the  Ministry. — Lord 
Camden  disclaims  their  measures. — Resignation  of  the  duke  of  Grafton.  .  103 — 122 

CHAPTER   VII.— A.D.  1768  to  A.D.  1771. 

Lord  North's  Administration. — Retrospect  of  Colonial  affairs.— Opposition  to  the  Reve- 
nue Act. — Debates  in  Parliament  on  American  proceedings.— Measures  of  coercion 
proposed.— Lord  Hillsborough. — Virginia. — Outrages  in  Boston.— Repeal  of  duties, 
except  that  on  teas. — Encounter  with  the  military  at  Boston. — Renewal  of  the  con- 
flict regarding  Wilkes. — Remonstrance  of  the  City  of  London. — Beckford's  Address 
to  the  King. — Printers  arrested  for  publishing  Debates. — Released  by  the  City 
•  authorities. — Riots. — The  Lord  Mayor  and  an  AMerman  committed. — Officers  of 
State 123 — 140 

CHAPTER  VIII.— A.D.  1 770  to  A.D.  1773. 

Foreign  affairs — Cession  of  Corsica  to  France. — The  Falkland  Islands.— First  Partition 
of  Poland. — War  between  Turkey  and  Russia. — Acquisitions  of  Russia. — Suppres- 
sion of  the  Jesuits. — Home  Politics. — Subscription  to  Thirty-nine  Articles.— Test 
Act. — Thirtieth  of  January.— Repeal  of  laws  against  forestalling. — The  queen  of 
Denmark. — Death  of  the  Princess  Dowager. — The  Royal  Marriage  Act. — Retrospect 
of  Indian  affairs. — East  India  Company's  Regulation  Act. — Teas,  duty  free,  to  the 
Colonies 141 — 154 

CHAPTER  IX.— A.D.  1773  to  A.D.  1775. 

Destruction  of   Tea  in   Boston  Harbour. — Franklin  before  the  Council. — Boston  Pon 


CONTENTS.  7 

Bill. — Burke's  speech  against  taxing  America. — Chatham's  speech-— Sentiments  oi 
the  Americans. — State  of  Parties  in  America. — Leaders  of  the  House  of  Commons. — 
Reception  of  the  Boston  Port  Bill. — Military  preparations. — Chatham's  and  Burke's 
efforts  for  conciliation. — Rapid  growth  of  America. — English  feelings  on  the  Amer- 
ican question. — Hostilities  commenced  at  Lexington. — Ticonderoga  and  Crown  Point 
taken. — Washington's  view  of  civil  war. — Principles  involved  in  the  struggle. 

Page     155 — 171 

CHAPTER  X.— A.D.  1775  to  A.D.  1776. 

Franklin's  return  to  America. — Meeting  of  Congress  at  Philadelphia. — Washington  elect, 
ed  Commander-in-chief. — Events  at  Boston. — Battle  of  Bunker's  Hill. — Washing- 
ton blockades  Boston. — Public  opinion  in  England. — Petition  from  Congress  to  the  • 
King. — Mr.  Penn,  the  bearer  of  the  petition,  examined  in  the  House  of  Lords. — Lord 
North's  Prohibitory  Bill. — Invasion  of  Canada.— Silas  Deane  sent  to  Paris.— Dec- 
laration of  Independence  adopted  by  Congress. — Note :  The  Declaration.  173 — 188 

CHAPTER  XI.— A.D.  1776  to  A.D.  1777. 

Lord  Howe,  as  the  British  Commissioner,  addresses  a  letter  to  Washington. — The  letter 
refused. —The  British  on  Long  Island. — Battle  of  Brooklyn. — Washington  retreats. — 
His  exploit  at  Trenton. — His  success  at  Princetown. — Franklin  dispatched  by  the 
Congress  to  Paris. — Underhand  proceedings  of  France. — John  the  Painter,  the  incen- 
diary.— Manning  the  navy. — Defences  of  the  country. — Chatham  appears  again  in 
Parliament. — Steuben. — LaFayette. — Kosciusko. — Battle  of  the  Brandywine. — The 
British  in  Philadelphia. — Burgoyne's  army  enters  the  United  States  from  Canada.— 
The  convention  of  Saratoga. — Parliament  meets. — Chatham's  speech  on  the  Address. 
— On  the  employment  of  Indians. — Washington  in  winter-quarters  at  Valley  Forge. 
-Steuben  re-organizes  the  army 189 — 205 

CHAPTER  XII.— A.D.  1777  to  A.D.  1779. 

Public  opinion  on  the  American  War. — Measures  of  conciliation  proposed  by  lord  North. 
—  France  concludes  a  treaty  of  amity  with  America. — Chatham's  last  speech  in  Parlia- 
ment.— His  sudden  illness  in  the  House  of  Lords. — His  death. — Propositions  of  lord 
North  rejected  by  Congress. — French  fleet  under  d'Estaing  arrives  in  America. — 
Attack  on  Rhode  Island  impeded  by  fleet  under  lord  Howe. — Admiral  Keppel  takes 
the  command  of  the  Channel  Fleet. — Engagement  off  Ushant. — Court-martial  on 
Keppel. — Burgoyne's  defence  of  himself  in  Parliament. — Destruction  of  Wyoming. 
— Spain  declares  war  against  Great  Britain. — Apprehensions  of  invasion.— The  na- 
tional spirit  roused. — Enterprises  of  Paul  Jones.— Military  operations  in  America  in 
1779 206 — 220 

CHAPTER  XIII.— A.D.  1780. 

Associations  for  redress  of  grievances. — Meetings  in  Yorkshire  and  other  Counties. — 
Burke's  proposals  for  Economical  Reform. — Dunning's  motion  on  the  influence  of 
the  Crown. — Decreasing  strength  of  the  Opposition. — Protestant  Associations  in 
Scotland. — They  extend  to  England. — Lord  George  Gordon. — Procession  to  Parlia- 
ment.— Roman  Catholic  chapels  burnt. — Newgate  set  on  fire. — Lord  Mansfield's 
House  sacked. — The  library  burnt. — Continued  riots. — A  council  called. — Wedder- 
burn's  opinion  on  the  employment  of  military. — The  riots  stopped  by  military  force. 
— Naval  affairs. — The  war  in  America. — Charleston  taken  by  the  British.— Lord 
Cornwallis. — His  severeties. — French  armament  under  Rochambeau. — Treachery  of 
Benedict  Arnold. — Major  Andre"  seized. — Verdict  of  a  Council  of  Officers. — His 
execution.  ..........  .  .  221—239 


8  CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER  XIV.— A.D.  1780  to  A.D.  1781. 

Elections  of  1780. — Burke  rejected  for  Bristol. — War  with  Holland.— French  attack  upon 
Jersey. — Capture  of  St.  Eustatius  by  Rodney. — Privateering. — Action  off  the  Dog- 
ger Bank. — Difficulties  of  Washington's  army. — Mutinies. — Cornwallis  in  the  Caro- 
linas.—  He  is  defeated  at  Cowpens. — His  victory  at  Guilford.— Cornwallis  marches 
into  Virginia. — Fleet  of  De  Grasse  arrives  in  the  Chesapeake — Washington's  march 
to  Virginia. — Cornwallis  fortifies  York  Town. — He  is  besieged,  and  his  supplies  cut 
off. — He  capitulates. — Surrender  of  the  British  army. — The  disastrous  news  received 
in  London Page  240—256 

CHAPTER  XV.— A.D.  1781  to  A.D.  1782. 

The  king  announces  to  Parliament  the  capitulation  of  Cornwallis. — Debates  on  the  Ad- 
dress very  hostile  to  the  ministry.— Strong  expressions  of  Vox. — More  prudent  lan- 
guage of  Pitt. — Differences  in  the  Cabinet. — Lord  G.  Germaine  retires. — Losses  of 
West  India  Islands  and  Minorca. — The  government  in  a  minority — Lord  North  an- 
nounces that  his  administration  is  at  an  end. — The  Rockingham  ministry. — Rodney's 
victory  over  De  Grasse. — Breaking  the  Line. — Capture  of  the  Villede  Paris. — Change 
of  costume  in  the  House  of  Commons. — Burke's  Bi1'  for  Economical  Reform. — Bills 
on  Revenue  Officers  and  Contractors. — Pitt's  motion  for  Parliamentary  Reform. — 
Arming  the  People. — Retrospect  of  the  state  of  Ire'and. — Irish  Parliament. — Grattan.— 
His  efforts  for  legislative  independence. — Tue  Volunteers  of  Ireland. — The  king's 
message  to  the  British  and  Irish  Parliaments. — The  Statute  of  George  I.  asserting 
the  dependence  of  Ireland  repealed 257 — 278 

CHAPTER  XVI.— A.D.  1782. 

Overtures  for  Peace  between  Franklin  and  Shelburne. —  Rival  negotiators  from  England. 
— Death  of  Lord  Rockingham. — Resignation  cf  the  Secretaryship  by  Mr.  Fox. — The 
Siege  of  Gibraltar. — Naval  affairs. — Lord  Howe. — Loss  of  the  Royal  George. — 
Howe's  relief  of  Gibraltar  after  the  first  bombardment. — Negotiations  for  Peace 
concluded. — The  Preliminaries  laid  before  Parliament. — Parliamentary  censures  of 
the  terms  of  Peace. — Lord  Shelburne  being  defeated,  resigns. — The  king  and  the 
American  minister. — Washington's  farewell  to  his  army,  and  his  retirement.  279 — 295 

CHAPTER  XVII.— A.D.  1760  to  A.D.  1783. 

Political  despondency  at  the  close  of  the  American  War. — Supposed  decay  of  Population. 
— Its  real  increase. — Development  of  the  productive  power  of  the  country. — Agricul- 
ture extended  and  improved. — Agricultural  condition  of  the  Eastern,  South  Midland, 
North  Midland,  and  South  Eastern,  counties. — Norfolk. — Mr.  Coke. — Suffolk. — 
Essex.  —  Buckinghamshire.  —  Oxfordshire.  —  Northamptonshire.  —  Bedfordshire.  — 
Francis,  duke  of  Bedford. — Improved  breeds  of  sheep  and  oxen. — Robert  bakewell. 
— Consumption  of  animal  food  in  England. — Cambridgeshire. — Lincolnshire.— The 
Great  Level  of  the  Fens. — Lincoln  Heath  and  the  Wolds.  —  Nottinghamshire.  — 
Derbyshire.— Surrey. — Middlesex. — Kent. — Sussex. — Hants. — Berkshire.— Windsor 
Forest. 296 — 317 

CHAPTER  XVIII.— A.D.  1760  to  A.D.  1783. 

Agricultural  condition  of  the  South  Western  Counties. — Wiltshire. — Dorsetshire. — Devon- 
shire.—  Somersetshire. —  Cornwall — Wales. — The  West  Midland  Counties. — The 
North  Midland. — Yorkshire. — Improvers  of  the  Moors. — James  Croft,  an  agricultural 
Miller. —  Northern  Counties.  — Durham. —  Northumberland. —  Westmorland —  Th« 


CONTENTS.  9 

Lake  District. — Agricultural  condition  of  Scotland.— The  Lothians. — Sheep  flocks.^ 
Ayrshire. — Burns. — Lanarkshire  and  Renfrewshire. — North-western  parts. — Agricul- 
tural condition  of  Ireland. — The  potatoe  cultivation.  .  .  .  Page  318 — 339 

CHAPTER  XIX.— A.D.  i76otoA.D.  1783. 

Revolution  in  the  peaceful  Arts. — Great  captains  of  Industry  raised  up  in  Britain. — The 
duke  of  Bridgewater  and  Brindley. — Canals  first  constructed  in  England. — The 
Cotton  manufacture. — The  fly-shuttle  of  Kay. — Cotton-spinning  machines- — The 
spinning-jenny  of  Hargreaves. — Cotton  spinning  ceasing  to  b«  a  domestic  employ-  j 
ment. — Richard  Arkwright. — His  water-frame  spinning  machine. — The  first  water 
spinning  mill. — Samuel  Crompton. — His  Hall-in-the-Wood  wheel,known  as  the  mule. 
— General  rush  to  engage  in  spinning  cotton. — Rapid  increase  of  Lancashire  towns. — 
Dr.  Cartwright. — His  power-loom. — Dr.  Roebuck. — First  furnace  at  Carron  for 
smelting  iron  by  pit-coal. — Wedgwood. — Potteries  of  Staffordshire- — Commercial 
treaty  with  France. — Watt. — Progress  of  his  improved  steam-engine. — Its  final  suc- 
cess   340 — 363 

CHAPTER  XX.— A.D.  1760  to  A.D.  1783. 

State  of  Art  in  the  reign  of  George  II. — Inferiority  of  native  artists. — Formation  of  an 
English  School  of  Painting. — Academies. — First  Exhibition  of  Works  of  English 
Artists. — Exhibition  of  Sign-paintings. — Foundation  of  the  Royal  Academy. — Early 
Exhibitions. — Reynolds,  Gainsborough,  Wilson,  and  West. — Engraving. — Strange 
and  Woollett. — Mezzotint. — MacArdell,  &c. — Boydell  and  commerce  in  English 
engravings. — Sculpture. — Banks,  Bacon,  and  Flaxman. — Architecture. — Sir  William 
Chambers. — Bridge-building.  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  364 — 382 

CHAPTER  XXL— A.D.    1737  to  A.D.  1783. 

Manners  as  depicted  in  the  Literature  of  the  period. — Changes  in  the  commerce  of 
Literature. — Samuel  Johnson  the  link  between  two  periods. — Literature  of  George 
the  Second's  time. — The  Novelists. — Richardson. — Fielding. — Smollett. — Sterne. — 
Goldsmith. — Literature  of  the  first  quarter  of  a  century  of  the  reign  of  George  the 
Third. —  Manners. —  Stage  Coaches. —  Highwaymen. —  The  Post. —  Inns. —  Public 
refreshment  places  of  London. — Ranelagh. — Vauxhall. — The  Pantheon. — The  Thea- 
tre.— Garrick. — Bath. — Gaming  Tables. 383 — 402 

CHAPTER  XXII.— A.D.  1737  to  A.D.  1783. 

View  of  manners  continued. — The  Duke  of  Queensberry. — Club-life. — Excessive  Gaming. 
— Excesses  of  Charles  Fox. — Dress. — Conversation. — The  Squires  of  England. — The 
Country  Justice. — The  Clergy  of  England. — The  Universities. — Professional  Classes. 
— The  Mercantile  Class, — The  Lower  orders. — The  Rabble. — Mobs. — Police  of  Lon- 
don.— The  Prisons. — Social  Reformers. — Howard. — Coram. — Hanway. — Raikes. — 
Education. — Rise  and  Growth  of  Methodism.  .....  403 — 426 

CHAPTER  XXIIL— A.D.  1773  to  A.D.  1784. 

Retrospect  of  Indian  affairs. — Hastings  Governor-General. — Rohilla  war. — New  Council 
at  Calcutta. — Hastings  and  the  Council  opposed  to  each  other. — Nuncomar. — His  ex- 
ecution.— Dissentions  at  Madras. — Mahratta  war. — Capture  of  Gwalior. — Hyder  Ali. —  >JT 
The  Carnatic  ravaged. — Hyder  defeated  by  Coote. — Death  of  Hyder. — Succeeded  by 
his  son  Tippoo  Saib. — Benares.  Oude. — The  Begums. — Committee  of  the  Houses  of 
Parliament  on  Indian  Affairs 427 — 438 


CONTENTS. 


CHAPTER  XXIV.— A.D.  1783  to  A.D.  1788. 

Coalition  of  Lord  North  and  Mr.  Fox. — Pitt's  second  Reform  Bill. — Affairs  of  India. — Fox 
brings  forward  his  India  Bill. — The  Bill  carried  in  the  House  of  Commons — Reject- 
ed in  the  House  of  Lords. — The  Coalition  dismissed  from  office. — Pitt  the  head  cf 
the  government. — His  struggle  against  a  majority  of  the  Commons — His  final 
triumph. — Parliament  dissolved. — Results  of  the  elections. — The  Westminster  elec- 
tion.— Pitt's  financial  measures. — Commercial  intercourse  between  Great  Britain  and 
Ireland. —  His  third  Reform  Bill. — Disputes  between  Holland  and  Austria. — Pitt's 
Sinking-Fund. — Commercial  Treaty  with  France. — Consolidation  of  Taxes. — War 
with  France  averted. — The  prince  of  Wales's  debts. — Mrs.  Fitzherbert. — The  king 
becomes  insane. — Parliamentary  conflict  on  the  Regency  Bill. — The  king's  Recov- 
ery   .  .  .  Page  439—462 

CHAPTER  XXV.— A.D.  1776  to  A.D.  1787. 

Symptoms  of  great  changes  in  France. — Constant  financial  difficulties. — General  view  of 
the  French  social  system. — Expectations  of  a  Revolution. — The  Parliament  of  Paris 
Meeting  of  the  States-General.— The  Three  Orders.— The  Tiers  Etat  demand  that  all 
the  Orders  shall  unite. — Excitement  in  Paris,  during  this  contest. — Tiers  Etat  assume 
the  title  of  the  National  Assembly. — Their  meeting  in  a  Tennis  Court. — The  Royal 
Sitting. — Open  resistance  of  the  Tiers  Etat  to  the  king's  orders. — The  king  yields. — 
Dismissal  of  Necker. — Destruction  of  the  Bastille.— March  to  Versailles  of  a  Parisian 
mob.— The  Royal  Family  and  National  Assembly,  removed  to  Paris.  .  463 — 489 

CHAPTER  XXVI.— A.D.  1789  to  A.D.  1791. 

Connexion  of  the  French  Revolution  with  English  history — The  public  opinion  of  Eng- 
land on  the  Revolution. — Views  of  eminent  men. — The  king  of  France  visits  the  Na- 
tional Assembly. — Session  of  the  British  Parliament.— Divisions  in  the  Whig  Party. 
— The  Test  Act. — Nootka  Sound. — War  with  Spain  averted.— Fate  of  the  Federation 
in  Paris. — Burke  publishes  his  "  Reflections  on  the  French  Revolution." — Russia  and 
Turkey.— Siege  of  Ismail.— Mirabeau  President  of  the  National  Assembly — His  nego- 
tiations with  the  Court.— His  death. — Parliament.— Breach  of  the  friendship  between 
Burke  and  Fox — Clamour  against  the  Dissenters. — The  Birmingham  Riots. 

490—510 

CHAPTER  XXVII.— A.D.  1791  to  A.D.  1792. 

Flight  from  Paris  of  the  king  and  his  family.— The  National  Assembly  after  the  discovery 
of  the  flight.— Hatred  of  Royalty. — Thomas  Paine. — National,  or  Constituent,  As- 
sembly at  an  end.— Meeting  of  the  Legislative  Assembly.-The  Declaration  of  Pilnitz. 
—French  princes  and  emigrants  at  Coblentz.— Opening  of  Parliament.— P*acific  Speech. 
—Pitt's  display  of  British  prosperity.— The  Slave  Trade. — Pitt's  eloquence. — The 
Libel  Law. — Attempts  to  form  a  Coalition. — Proclamation  against  Seditions.— Chau- 
velin  and  Lord  Grenville — Partition  of  Poland SII—53o 

CHAPTER  XXVIII.— A.D.  1793. 

Deaths  of  the  emperor  and  the  king  of  Sweden. — The  Girondin  Ministry.— French  dec- 
laration of  war  against  the  king  of  Hungary  and  Bohemia.— The  Veto. — Roland,  and 
two  other  ministers,  dismissed. — Insurrection  of  the  aoth  of  June.— The  Country  in 
Danger  proclaimed.— Arrival  of  the  Marsellais.— Proclamation  of  the  Duke  of  Bruns- 
wick.— Insurrection  of  the  loth  of  August. — Attack  on  the  Tuileries. — Royal  family 
removed  to  the  Temple.— Longwy  taken  by  the  Prussians. — The  Massacres  of  Sep-' 
tember 53'— 54f 


CONTENTS.  1 1 

CHAPTER  XXIX.— A.D.  1792  to  A.D.  1793. 

Opening  of  the  French  National  Convention. — The  Prussian  Array  enters  France. — 
Battle  of  Valmy. — Retreat  of  the  Prussians. — Battle  of  Jemappes. — Opening  of  'he 
British  Parliament. — Disposition  of  the  British  Government. — Aggressive  Decrees  of 
the  French  Convention. — Mr.  Pitt's  continued  desire  for  non-intervention. — Louis 
XVI.  and  his  family  prisoners  in  the  Temple. — Louis  brought  to  the  bar  of  the  Con- 
vention.— Anxiety  for  his  fate  in  the  British  Parliament. — Political  manoeuvres  of 
lord  Loughborough. — The  Whig  party  broken  up,  and  Loughborough  made  Chan- 
cellor.— Influence  of  this  negotiation  on  Mr.  Pitt's  policy. — State  of  public  opinion 
in  England. — Trial  of  Thomas  Paine  for  libel,  as  the  author  of  the  "Rights  of  Man." 
— The  Alien  Bill. — Correspondence  with  Chauvelin. — Trial  of  the  king  of  France. — 
Votes  of  the  Convention. — Execution  of  the  king — Proceedings  of  the  British  Parlia- 
ment.— Note  on  the  Dagger-Scene Page  548 — 571 

CHAPTER  XXX.— A.D.  1785  to  A.D.  1793. 

Retrospect  of  Indian  Affairs  from  1785. — Lord  Cornwallis  Governor-General. — Declar- 
atory Bill. —  War  with  Tippoo. — Retreat  of  Cornwallis  in  1790. — Capture  of  Serin- 
gapatam  in  1791. — Peace  with  Tippoo. — The  French  West  India  Islands. — Retro- 
spect of  Discoveries  in  the  Pacific. — Otaheite. — New  Zealand. — New  South  Wales. — 
Canada. — Military  and  Naval  Establishments  of  Great  Britain. — France  declares 
War 572—581 

CHAPTER   XXXI.— A.D.  1547. 

Resolutions  proposed  by  Mr.  Fox  against  war  with  France. — Commercial  distress. — Par- 
liamentary Reform  opposed  by  Mr.  Pitt. — Traitorous  Correspondence  Bill. — Pitt, 
Burke,  Fox, — the  diversity  of  their  views  of  England's  policy. — Sanguine  expectations 
of  warlike  success. — Dumouriez  in  Holland. — Battle  of  Neerwinden. — Defection  of 
Dumouriez. — Measures  of  the  Jacobins. — Revolutionary  Tribunal. — Committee  of 
Public  Salvation. — Excessive  prices  of  Commodities  in  Paris. —  Produced  by  the  de- 
preciation of  Assignats. — Plunder  of  the  Shops. — Law  of  Maximum. — Forced  Levy 
of  troops.— La  Vende'e  in  insurrection. — Mr.  Fox's  motion  for  Peace. — Insurrection 
against  the  Girondin  Deputies. — Their  arrest  and  flight.— Assassination  of  Marat  by 
Charlotte  Corday.— Note  on  the  French  Revolutionary  Kalendar.  .  583 — 597 

TABLE  OF  CONTEMPORARY  SOVEREIGNS 600 

TABLE  OF  TREATIES. 601 

PRINCIPAL  OFFICERS  OF  STATE  FROM  1770  TO  1783.      ......  603 

GROWTH  OF  THE  NATIONAL  DEBT °  604 


POPULAR  HISTORY  OF  ENGLAND. 


CHAPTER  I. 

Dread  of  invasion. — Defence  of  the  country  by  foreign  troops. — French  fleet  at  Minorca, 
— Admiral  Byng — Surrender  of  St.  Philip,  in  Minorca. — Popular  rage  against  Byng. 
— Commencement  of  the  Seven  Years' War. — Successes  of  Frederick  of  Prussia.— 
Household  of  George,  prince  of  Wales. — Changes  of  Ministry. — Newcastle  retires.— 
Administration  of  the  duke  of  Devonshire  and  Mr.  Pitt. — Altered  tone  of  the  king's 
speech. — Militia  Bill. — Foreign  troops  sent  home. — Subsidy  to  the  king  of  Prussia. — 
Trial  of  Byng.— -His  execution. — Pitt  and  Legge  dismissed  from  their  employments. 
— National  feeling. — Coalition  of  Newcastle  and  Pitt. — Affairs  of  India. — Black  Hole1 
at  Calcutta. — Surajah  Dowlah  occupies  Calcutta. — It  is  re-taken  by  Clive  and  Wat- 
son.— The  battle  of  Plassey. — Sarajah  Dowlah  deposed  and  killed. — Meer  Jaffier 
Subahdar  of  Bengal.— Establishment  of  the  British  ascendancy  in  India. 

IN  a  fortnight  after  his  dismissal  from  office,  Pitt,  from  his 
place  in  parliament,  sent  forth  a  voice  whose  echoes  would  be  heard 
throughout  the  land.  The  nation  was  dreading  a  French  invasion 
— sullenly  trembling  at  the  possible  consequences  of  an  assault 
upon  the  capital,  and  without  confidence  in  the  government  to 
which  the  public  defence  was  entrusted.  Pitt  seconded  the  mo- 
tion of  the  Secretary  of  War,  for  an  army  of  thirty-four  thousand 
men,  being  an  increase  of  fifteen  thousand.  He  had  wanted  even 
a  larger  increase  in  the  previous  year.  The  king's  speech  of  the 
preceding  Session  had  lulled  the  nation  into  a  fallacious  dream  of 
repose.  "He  wanted  to  call  this  country  out  of  that  enervate 
state,  that  twenty  thousand  men  from  France  could  shake  it.  The 
maxims  of  our  government  were  degenerated,  not  our  natives." 
An  opinion  had  gone  forth,  which  in  1757  was  embodied  in  a  book 
of  extraordinary  popularity,  alluded  to  by  Cowper : — 

"  The  inestimable  Estimate  of  Brown 
Rose  like  a  paper-kite,  and  charm'd  the  town."  * 

The  nation  was  told,  "  We  are  rolling  to  the  brink  of  a  precipice 
that  must  destroy  us."f     Effeminacy,  Vanity,  Luxury,  Rapacity 

*"  Table  Talk." 

t  "  Estimate  of  the  Manners  and  Principles  of  the  Tim«s,"  ed.  1758,  p.  i£. 


14  HISTORY   OF   ENGLAND. 

universally  prevailed.  Religion  was  despised.  The  principle  of 
honour  was  lost  or  totally  corrupted.  The  national  capacity  was 
lowered.  The  national  spirit  of  defence  was  impaired.  There 
were  no  better  fighting  men  upon  earth  than  the  common  people 
of  England;  but  in  the  better  sort  there  was  "such  a  general  de- 
fect in  the  spirit  of  Defence  as  would  alarm  any  people  who  were 
not  lost  to  all  sense  of  danger."  *  The  danger  was  from  an  out- 
ward enemy.  "  The  French,  in  land  armies,  are  far  our  superiors. 
They  are  making  large  and  dreadful  strides  towards  us  in  naval 

power Should   the    French   possess   themselves   of 

North  America,  what  eye  can  be  so  weak  as  not  to  see  the  conse- 
quence ?  Must  not  a  naval  power  come  down  upon  us,  equal,  if 
not  superior,  to  our  own  ?  "  t  A  diminished  population  had  accom- 
panied increasing  commerce.  Excess  of  trade  and  overflow  qf 
wealth  had  impaired  our  bodily  strength 4  It  is  easy  to  detect  the 
fallacies  of  this  course  of  reasoning  ;  but  there  can  be  little  doubt 
that  the  nation  required  to  be  roused  from  its  lethargy.  Happily 
there  was  a  man  capable  of  rousing  it.  Pitt,  in  his  speech  of  the 
5th  of  December,  had  expressed  his  earnest  wish  to  "see  that 
breed  restored,  which  under  our  old  principles  had  carried  our 
glory  so  high."  The  king,  on  the  23rd  of  March,  announced  the 
probability  of  an  invasion,  and  informed  the  Houses  that  he  had 
made  a  requisition  for  a  body  of  Hessian  troops,  in  pursuance  of 
the  treaty  recently  concluded.  Both  Houses  acknowledged  with 
gratitude  his  majesty's  care  for  the  national  defence.  On  the  2Qth 
of  March,  Mr.  Fox  moved,  "that  an  humble  Address  be  presented 
to  his  majesty,  that,  for  the  more  effectual  defence  of  this  island, 
and  for  the  better  security  of  the  religion  and  liberties  of  his  sub- 
jects, against  the  threatened  attacks  by  a  foreign  enemy,  he  would 
be  graciously  pleased  to  order  twelve  battalions  of  his  electoral 
troops,  together  with  the  usual  detachment  of  artillery,  to  be  forth- 
with brought  into  this  kingdom."  The  Address  was  voted  by  the 
large  ministerial  majority;  but  not  without  strong  dissatisfaction. 
That  State  alone,  exclaimed  Pitt,  is  a  sovereign  State,  "  quis  suis 
stat  viribus,  non  alieno  pendet  arbitrio  — which  stands  by  its  own 
strength,  not  by  the  help  of  another  country.  The  Hanoverians  and 
Hessians  came,  and  were  encamped  in  various  parts  of  the  kingdom. 
Yet  the  common  people  of  England  were  ready  to  deserve  the  eu- 
logium  of  Brown  as  to  their  capacity  for  fighting.  They  enlisted 
freely,  when  called  upon.  Hogarth's  print  of  the  recruit  who  want- 
ed to  add  "  a  cubit  to  his  stature  "  is  an  evidence  of  this  disposi- 
tion. 

*  "  Estimate  of  the  Manners  and  Principles  of  the  Times,"  ed.  1758,   p.  89. 
t  Ibid.,  p.  144.  J  Ibid.,  p.  189. 


ADMIRAL    BYNG.          ,  15 

For  half  a  century  Great  Britain  had  held  possession  of  the 
island  of  Minorca,  which  general  Stanhope  and  admiral  Leake  had 
conquered  during  the  palmy  time  of  the  War  of  the  Succession. 
Port-Mahon,  the  best  harbour  of  the  Mediterranean,  was  thought 
a  more  important  British  possession  even  than  Gibraltar.  The 
English  ministers  had  received  intimation  very  early  in  the  spring 
of  1 756,  that  a  formidable  expedition  was  in  preparation  at  Toulon, 
not  provisioned  for  a  long  voyage.  They  shut  their  eyes  to  the  ex- 
posed state  of  the  island  that  lay  within  a  few  days'  sail  from  the 
shores  of  Provence.  The  defence  of  Port-Mahon  was  entrusted 
to  a  small  garrison,  commanded  by  an  aged  and  infirm  general. 
The  government  was  at  last  alarmed.  They  dispatched  admiral 
Byng  (son  of  lord  Torrington,  the  admiral  Byng  of  queen  Anne's 
time,)  with  ten  ships,  from  Spithead,  on  the  7th  of  April.  On  the 
loth  of  April,  the  French  fleet,  of  twelve  ships  of  the  line,  sailed 
from  Toulon,  with  transports,  having  sixteen  thousand  troops  on 
board.  They  were  off  the  coast  of  Minorca  on  the  i8th,  and  be- 
gan to  disembark  at  the  port  of  Ciudadella.  The  only  chance  of 
defence  against  such  an  armament  was  in  the  strong  castle  of  St. 
Philip.  General  Blakeney  got  together  between  two  and  three 
thousand  troops,  the  officers  of  the  English  regiments  being,  for 
the  most  part,  absent ;  and  he  prepared  for  resistance.  The  natural 
and  artificial  strength  of  the  fortress  prevented  the  French  from  pro- 
ceeding in  the  siege  without  much  cautious  delay.  On  the  igth  of 
May  admiral  Byng's  fleet,  having  been  joined  by  two  more  men-of- 
war,  arrived  within  a  view  of  St.  Philip,  whilst  the  batteries  of  the 
French  were  carrying  on  their  fire  against  the  fort,  where  the  flag 
of  England  was  still  flying.  Byng,  who  had  touched  at  Gibraltar, 
had  written  home  to  explain  that  he  could  obtain  no  necessaries  at 
that  station  ;  that  the  place  was  so  neglected  that  he  was  unable  to 
clean  the  foul  ships  with  which  he  had  sailed  from  England ;  and 
that  if  he  had  been  sent  earlier  he  might  have  been  able  to  have 
prevented  the  landing  of  the  French  in  Minorca,  whereas  it  was 
now  very  doubtful  whether  any  good  could  arise  from  an  attempt 
to  reinforce  the  garrison.  This  was  something  like  an  anticipation 
of  failure,  with  an  indication  of  the  neglect  which  made  success 
difficult.  On  the  2ist  of  May,  De  la  Galissonniere,  the  French 
admiral,  bore  down  upon  the  British  fleet.  Byng  did  not  engage 
with  that  alacrity  which  the  naval  traditions  of  our  country  point 
out  as  the  first  duty  of  .an  admiral,  even  with  a  doubtful  advantage. 
Rear-admiral  West,  on  the  contrary,  with  his  portion  of  the  squad- 
ron, had  attacked  with  impetuosity,  and  had  driven  some  of  the 
French  vessels  out  of  their  line  of  battle.  Byng  was  scarcely  en- 


f€  '  HISTORY   OF   ENGLAND. 

gaged,  except  at  the  beginning  of  the  action,  when  his  own  ship; 
being  damaged  in  the  rigging,  became  for  a  short  time  unmanage- 
able. He  hesitated  about  advancing,  for  fear  of  breaking  his  line. 
De  la  Galissonniere  leisurely  retired.  Byng  called  a  council  of 
war  ;  represented  that  he  was  inferior  to  the  enemy  in  number  of 
men  and  weight  of  metal,  and  proposed  to  return  to  Gibraltar. 
The  council  agreed  to  the  proposal.  The  admiral  sent  home  his 
dispatches;  and  on  the  i6th  of  June,  sir  Edward  Hawke  and  ad- 
miral Saunders  were  ordered  to  supersede  Byng  and  his  second  in 
command.  The  unfortunate  admiral  was  taken  home  under  arrest ; 
and  was  committed  as  a  prisoner  to  an  apartment  in  Greenwich 
Hospital.  Admiral  West  was  received  with  favour  at  St.  James's. 
After  a  defence  as  resolute  as  it  was  possible  to  make  against  an 
overwhelming  force,  St.  Philip  was  surrendered,  after  an  assault 
on  the  27th  of  June  headed  by  the  duke  de  Richelieu.  The  garri- 
son marched  out  with  the  honours  of  war,  and  were  conveyed  to 
Gibraltar.  A  tempest  of  popular  fury  had  arisen,  such  as  had 
rarely  been  witnessed  in  England.  The  news  of  Byng's  return  to 
Gibraltar,  without  having  attempted  to  relieve  the  garrison  in  St. 
Philip,  first  came  to  London  through  the  French  admiral's  dispatch 
to  his  government.  "  It  is  necessary,"  says  Walpole,  "  to  be  well 
acquainted  with  the  disposition  of  a  free,  proud,  fickle,  and  violent 
people,  before  one  can  conceive  the  indignation  occasioned  by  this 
intelligence."  *  But  when  Byng's  own  dispatch  came,  in  which 
he  assumed  the  triumphant  tone  of  a  man  who  had  done  his  duty, 
his  effigy  was  burnt  in  all  the  great  towns.  Every  ballad-singer 
had  a  ditty  in  which  he  was  execrated.  When  he  arrived  at  Ports- 
mouth he  was  saved  with  difficulty  from  being  torn  in  pieces  by  the 
mob.  A  chap-book  related  "  A  Rueful  Story,  by  a  broken-hearted 
sailor."  A  coarse  print  exhibited  Byng  hanging  in  chains.  A 
medal  was  struck,  having  a  figure  of  the  admiral,  with  the  inscrip- 
tion. "  Was  Minorca  sold  for  French  gold  ?  "  Addresses  went  up 
to  the  throne  from  London,  and  from  almost  every  county  and  city, 
calling  for  inquiry  and  signal  punishment.  To  the  Address  of  the 
City,  the  king  was  made  to  pledge  his  royal  word  that  he  would 
save  no  delinquent  from  justice.  Newcastle,  "with  a  volubility  of 
timorous  folly,  when  a  deputation  from  the  City  had  made  repre- 
sentations to  him  against  the  admiral,  blurted  out,  '  Oh  !  indeed  he 
shall  be  tried  immediately — he  shall  be  hanged  directly.'  "  f  The 
fate  of  the  unhappy  man  was  not  determined  until  the  spring  of 
the  following  year. 

In  closing  the  Session  of  Parliament  on  the  27th  of  May,  the 

*  "  Memoirs  of  the  Reign  of  George  II.,"  vol.  ii.  p.  215.  t  Ibid.,  p.  230. 


COMMENCEMENT   OF   THE   SEVEN    YEARS'   WAR.  17 

king  announced  that  the  injuries  his  subjects  had  sustained  from 
'the  French  having  been  followed  by  the  invasion  of  Minorca,  which 
had  been  guaranteed  to  the  British  crown  by  all  the  great  powers 
of  Europe,  he  had  formally  declared  war  against  France.  Impor- 
tant changes  had  taken  place  since,  in  the  previous  summer,  the 
king  had  negotiated  for  a  subsidy  to  Russia,  to  protect  his  Hano- 
verian possessions  against  the  probable  attacks  of  Prussia.  George 
II.  and  Frederick  II.  were  not  exactly  fitted  for  any  cordial  friend- 
ship. They  had  been  fighting  on  opposite  sides  for  eight  years  in 
the  war  of  the  Austrian  Succession.  George  took  the  side  of 
Maria  Theresa,  and — to  use  the  words  of  Mr.  Carlyle — "  needed 
to  begin  by  assuring  his  parliament  and  newspapers,  profoundly  dark 
on  the  matter,  that  Frederick  was  a  robber  and  villain  for  taking 
the  other  side."  *  Frederick  cared  little  for  what  parliaments  or 
newspapers  might  say  of  him.  Perhaps  to  those  who  have  followed 
his  last  historian  in  tracing  the  origin  of  the  claims  upon  Silesia, 
he  may  be  thought  to  have  had  justice  upon  his  side — that  sort  of 
justice  which  encourages  sovereigns  to  imperil  the  happiness  of 
millions  for  the  assertion  of  personal  rights.  The  war  of  the  Suc- 
cession came  to  an  end,  and  Frederick  got  Silesia  guaranteed  to 
him.  Beyond  the  public  differences  of  George  and  Frederick,  the 
Prussian  king  had  indulged  his  unhappy  talent  of  sarcasm ;  and 
his  sharp  sayings  about  his  Britannic  majesty  were  not  easily  to 
be  forgiven.  But  the  time  was  come  when  they  became  politically 
necessary  to  each  other.  A  treaty  was  concluded  at  Westminster 
on  the  i6th  January,  1756,  by  which  the  king  of  Great  Britain  and 
the  king  of  Prussia,  fearing  that  the  peace  of  Europe  might  be  dis- 
•  turbed  in  consequence  of  the  disputes  in  America,  entered  upon  a 
convention  of  neutrality,  by  which  they  were  each  bound  not  to 
suffer  any  foreign  troops  to  enter  Germany,  and  their  several  do- 
minions were  reciprocally  guaranteed.  The  scheme  of  subsiding 
Russia  was  thus  renounced.  Some  old  money  differences  were  at 
the  same  time  adjusted.  This  treaty  was  not  submitted  to  Parlia- 
ment till  the  close  of  1756.  In  the  meantime  the  terrible  contest 
known  as  the  Seven  Year's  War  had  commenced.  The  loss  of 
Silesia  was  the  one  great  grief  of  Maria  Theresa.  From  the  peace 
of  Aix-la-Chapelle  her  dominant  thought,  which  almost  became  a 
ruling  passion,  was  the  hope  of  its  recovery.  If  France  could  be 
induced  to  take  part  with  Austria, — if  each  could  forget  the  hatreds 
of  two  centuries, — Prussia  would  return  to  her  old  insignificance  in 
the  affairs  of  Europe.  The  ridicule  which  king  George  felt  it  poli- 
tic to  overlook  in  his  satirical  nephew,  rankled  in  the  heart  of  the 

*  "  Friedrich  II.,"  vol.  i.  p.  15. 

VOL.  VI.— 2 


l8  HISTORY   OF  ENGLAND. 

real  ruler  of  France,  Madame  de  Pompadour.  Louis  XV.  had 
himself  writhed  under  this  hornet's  sting.  The  profligate  Bourbon 
resolved  to  make  common  cause  with  Maria  Theresa.  The  Czarina 
Elizabeth  of  Russia  joined  the  coalition,  with  a  similar  sense  of  per- 
sonal affronts.  Augustus,  king  of  Poland  and  elector  of  Saxony, 
and  the  king  of  Sweden,  entered  into  the  same  concert.  The  king 
of  Prussia  saw  that  his  enemies  were  gathering  on  every  side,  and 
that  his  sole  friend  was  England. 

Frederick,  at  the  commencement  of  the  Seven  Years'  War,  was 
in  his  forty-fourth  year.  He  had  enjoyed  ten  years  of  repose  since 
the  peace  of  Dresden  in  1746,  during  which  period,  by  his  wisdom 
as  a  financier,  and  his  strictness  as  a  military  disciplinarian,  he  was 
prepared  to  go  to  war  with  a  full  treasury  and  a  well  trained  army. 
His  will  was  law  amongst  his  five  millions  of  subjects  ;  and,  except 
in  his  military  code,  he  was  a  merciful  and  just  despot.  Arbitrary 
sovereigns,  with  eager  troops  waiting  upon  their  nod.  are  not  re- 
tarded in  their  movements  by  the  hesitations  of  counsellors,  or  the 
scruples  of  parliaments.  Sir  Andrew  Mitchell,  the  English  envoy 
at  Berlin,  was  endeavouring  to  dissuade  Frederick  from  immediate 
hostilities.  "  What,  sir !  "  exclaimed  the  king.  "  What  do  you  see 
in  my  face  ?  Was  my  nose  made,  do  you  think,  to  receive  fillips  ?"  * 
Frederick  had  demanded  an  explanation  of  her  views  from  the 
empress  of  Austria,  and  had  received  no  specific  answer.  He 
would  not  receive  an  answer,  he  had  said,  "in  the  style  of  an 
oracle."  He  was  perfectly  informed  of  the  confederacy  against 
himself,  and  he  resolved  to  anticipate  its  hostile  movements.  To- 
wards the  end  of  August,  he  whispered  Mitchell,  who  was  at  a 
court  supper,  to  come  to  him  at  three  o'clock  the  next  morning., 
Frederick  carried  the  envoy  to  his  camp,  and  told  him,  "  there  were 
a  hundred  thousand  men  setting  out  that  instant,  they  knew  not 
whither;  and  bade  him  write  to  his  master,  that  he  was  going  to 
defend  his  majesty's  dominions  and  his  own."  f  To  the  most 
feeble  of  his  antagonists,  the  elector  of  Saxony  and  king  of  Poland, 
^-Frederick  allowed  no  breathing  time.  He  was  in  possession  of 
Dresden  on  the  loth  of  September.  The  Saxon  army  was  in  the 
fortified  camp  of  Pirna, — a  position  which  Frederick  deemed  im- 
pregnable, and  therefore  was  contented  to  blockade  it.  He  called 
himself  Protector  of  Saxony,  but  in  truth  was  its  conqueror.  Yet, 
although  helping  himself  to  the  military  stores  of  the  arsenals,  and 
dealing  with  public  money  as  if  it  were  his  own,  he  exhibited  one 
species  of  moderation  which  the  conqueror  of  the  next  great  period 

*  "  Frederick  the  Great  and  his  Times,"  edited  by  Thomas  Campbell,  vol.  ii.  p.  436. 
t  Walpele —  "  Memoirs  of  George  II.,"  vol.  ii.  p.  240- 


SUCCESSES   OF    FREDERICK   OF    PRUSSIA.  19 

ef  European  warfare  had  the  self-denial  to  imitate  at  Dresden, 
whatever  was  his  plunder  of  other  cities.  Frederick  visited  the 
famous  picture-gallery.  The  director  of  the  gallery  trembled,  as 
he  saw  the  master  of  the  capital,  and  of  all  its  treasures,  pause  be- 
fore some  of  the  great  works  of  art  which  were  the  pride  of  the  elec- 
torate. In  his  imagination,  the  Madonna  di  San  Sisto  of  Raffaelle, 
the  Notte  of  Correggio,  were  destined  to  be  packed  off  to  Berlin. 
"  Sir,"  said  Frederick  to  the  director,  "  I  suppose  I  may  be  per- 
mitted to  have  copies."  The  king  of  Prussia  was  not  so  moderate 
or  courteous  when  his  greater  interests  were  concerned.  It  was 
important  that  he  should  obtain  possession  of  the  State  Papers 
which  would  prove  the  designs  of  the  confederacy  against  him. 
Augustus  was  at  the  camp  of  Pirna.  Maria  Josepha  of  Austria, 
his  consort,  was  at  Dresden.  The  spirited  lady  refused  to  give 
them  up,  except  by  force ;  and,  according  to  some  accounts,  sat 
upon  the  trunk  in  which  they  were  contained,  which  had  been  car- 
ried to  her  bed-chamber ; — according  to  other  accounts,  placed  her 
back  against  the  door  of  the  muniment-room  in  which  they  were. 
The  Prussian  commandant  of  Dresden  did  obtain  thorn  by  force. 
The  discourtesy  was  long  remembered  to  Frederick's  disadvantage ; 
but  by  the  publication  of  these  papers,  he.  showed  to  Europe  that 
in  striking  the  first  blow  against  the  coalesced  powers  he  was  jus- 
tified by  the  necessity  of  self-preservation.  The  military  operations 
which  followed  secured  to  him  Saxony.  An  Austrian  army,  com- 
manded by  marshal  Browne,  was  advancing  from  Bohemia.  Fred- 
erick left  the  camp  of  Pirna  to  be  dealt  with  by  prince  Ferdinand  ; 
and,  with  a  force  of  twenty-five  thousand  men,  defeated  the  Austrian 
army  of  forty  thousand,  in  the  plain  of  Losowitz.  This  battle,  which 
was  most  severely  contested,  took  place  on  the  ist  of  October. 
Frederick  returned  to  Dresden.  The  Saxon  army  in  Pirna,  strictly 
blockaded,  had  only  the  prospect  of  famine  or  of  surrender.  They 
surrendered  unconditionally.  Some  of  these  seventeen  thousand 
men  were  compelled,  and  some  were  persuaded,  to  enter  into  the 
Prussian  service.  The  elector  retired  to  Warsaw  ;  and  Frederick 
went  into  winter  quarters  in  the  capital  of  the  country  that  had,  in 
a  few  months,  been  reduced  to  the  condition  of  an  enslaved  prov- 
ince. 

On  the  4th  of  June,  1756,  George,  prince  of  Wales,  completed 
his  eighteenth  year, — the  period  determined  by  the  Regency  Act 
as  that  of  his  majority  in  case  his  grandfather  had  been  dead. 
The  king  wished  to  give  the  prince  a  separate  establishment,  with 
an  allowance  of  4o,ooo/.  a  year,  thus  removing  him  from  the  con- 
trol of  the  Princess  Dowager.  The  young  prince  entreated  the 


20  HISTORY   OF    ENGLAND. 

king  not  to  separate  him  from  his  mother,  although  he  was  deeply 
grateful  for  the  proposed  royal  bounty.  They  were  both  anxious 
that  lord  Bute  should  be  Groom  of  the  Stole  in  the  new  House- 
hold. Lord  Waldegrave  relates  that  he  was  present  at  a  Cabinet 
Council,  for  the  consideration  of  this  appointment;  when  the  Chan- 
cellor, lord  Hardwicke,  said  "  he  would  not  give  credit  to  some 
very  extraordinary  reports  ;  but  that  many  sober  and  respectable 
persons  would  think  it  indecent."  *  The  court  scandal,  which 
Walpole  dwells  upon  with  peculiar  gusto,  continued  some  time 
after  prince  George  came  to  the  throne,  and  was  one  of  the  mis- 
fortunes of  the  early  part  of  his  reign.  Bute,  in  spite  of  the  "  ex- 
traordinary reports" — which  are  now  held  by  most  unprejudiced 
inquirers  to  have  had  their  origin  in  party  virulence  and  vulgar 
credulity — was  appointed  to  the  office  in  the  Household,  very  re- 
luctantly on  the  part  of  the  king.  In  this  influential  position,  the 
favourite  of  the  heir  apparent,  he  had  considerable  participation  in  the 
politics  of  the  time.  One  curious  example  of  the  mode  in  which 
lord  Bute  kept  the  future  before  the  view  of  great  parliamentary 
leaders,  may  be  seen  in  a  passage  of  a  letter  to  Mr.  Pitt,  during 
that  first  short  time  of  his  power,  which  we  shall  have  presently  to 
notice  :  "  I  am  certain  the  firm  support  and  countenance  of  him 
who  is  some  day  to  reap  the  fruits  of  my  friend's  unwearied  en- 
deavours for  the  publid  safety,  would  make  him  perfectly  easy 
under  the  frowns  of  prejudiced,  deluded,  fluctuating  men."  f 

Mr.  Fox  had  held  the  seals  of  Secretary  of  State  about  ten 
months,  during  which  period  a  heavy  burden  of  obloquy  had  to  be 
borne  by  the  ministry.  In  October,  1756,  he  resigned  his  office. 
He  probably  was  justified  in  abandoning  his  colleagues  to  the  ap- 
proaching censures  of  parliament  in  regard  to  measures  of  which 
he  had  been  allowed  no  direction.  The  popular  indignation  about 
the  loss  of  Minorca  was  taking  a  new  direction.  In  September, 
"  the  whole  city  of  Westminster  was  disturbed  by  the  song  of  a 
hundred  ballad-singers,  the  burthen  of  which  was,  '  to  the  block 
with  Newcastle,  and  the  yard-arm  with  Byng.'  "  %  In  October, 
"  Poor  Byng  is  the  phrase  in  every  mouth,  and  then  comes  the 
hackneyed  simile  of  the  Scapegoat."  §  The  resignation  of  the 
Secretary  of  State  was  a  sudden  blow  to  Newcastle,  "  who  meant 
that  Fox  should  have  continued  in  a  responsible  office  ;  with  a 
double  portion  of  dangers  and  abuse,  but  without  any  share  of 

*  "  Memoirs,"  p.  67. 

t  "  Chatham       Correspondence,"  March  2,  1757,  vol.  i.  p.  223. 
t  Potter  to  Grenville — "  Greuville  Papers,"  vol.  i.  p.  172. 
§  VVilkes  to  Greuville,   /£.'.-/.,  >>.  176. 


DUKE   OF    DEVONSHIRE   AND    MR.    PITT.  21 

power."  *  The  prime  minister  was  left  without  any  support  in 
the  House  of  Commons.  Murray,  the  Attorney-General,  insisted 
upon  being  appointed  Lord  Chief  Justice,  a  vacancy  having  oc- 
curred by  the  death  of  Sir  Dudley  Ryder.  Newcastle  offered  the 
great  lawyer  the  choice  of  sinecures  of  fabulous  amount — a  pen- 
sion— any  terms,  if  he  would  remain  in  the  House  of  Commons. 
Murray  was  immoveable,  and,  to  the  enduring  advantage  of  the 
nation,  became  Chief  Justice,  and  lord  Mansfield.  Pitt  stood  alone 
without  a  rival, — "no  orator  to  oppose  him,  who  had  courage  even 
to  look  him  in  the  face."f  Newcastle,  in  his  extremity,  induced 
the  king  to  consent  that  an  overture  should  be  made  to  the  awful 
Commoner.  Pitt  refused  to  treat,  saying  that  "  a  plain  man,  un- 
practised in  the  policy  of  a  court,  could  never  be  the  associate  of 
so  experienced  a  minister."  f  The  unhappy  duke  went  about  im- 
ploring this  nobleman  and  that  commoner  to  take  the  seals.  "  No 
man  would  stand  in  the  gap,"  says  Waldegrave.  At  last  New- 
castle himself  resigned.  "  Perfidy,  after  thirty  years,  had  an  in- 
termission," writes  Walpole.  Lord  Hardwicke,  the  learned  and 
able  Chancellor,  who  desired  retirement,  followed  his  old  friend. 
A  coalition  was  proposed  between  Fox  and  Pitt,  which  Pitt  refused 
to  agree  to.  At  last,  in  November,  the  duke  of  Devonshire  was 
appointed  First  Commissioner  of  the  Treasury ;  Pitt,  Secretary  of 
State  ;  his  brother-in-law,  Temple,  at  the  head  of  the  Admiralty ; 
Legge,  Chancellor  of  the  Exchequer. 

On  the  2nd  of  December,  the  Parliament  was  opened  with  a 
Speech  from  the  Throne,  "which,"  says  lord  Waldegrave,  "by  its 
style  and  substance,  appeared  to  be  the  work  of  a  new  speech- 
maker."  Never  was  a  vital  change  of  policy  more  boldly  indicated. 
It  declared  that  the  succour  and  preservation  of  America  "  demand 
resolutions  of  vigour  and  dispatch."  That,  for  a  firm  defence  at 
home,  "  a  national  militia  may  in  time  become  one  good  resource." 
"  Relying  with  pleasure  on  the  spirit  and  zeal  of  my  people,"  said 
the  king,  "  the  body  of  my  electoral  troops,  which  I  ordered  hither 
at  the  desire  of  my  Parliament,  I  have  directed  to  return  to  my 
dominions  in  Germany."  Finally,  his  majesty  said,  "  Unprosper- 
ous  events  of  war  in  the  Mediterranean  have  drawn  from  my  sub- 
jects signal  proofs  how  dearly  they  tender  my  honour  and  that  of 
my  crown."  To  recommend  a  militia,  which  his  majesty  had  al- 
ways ridiculed  ;  to  trust  to  the  British  people  for  the  defence  of 
their  country,  instead  of  trusting  to  the  Hessians  and  Hanoverians; 
to  call  uncourtly  addresses  and  popular  clamour  signal  proofs  of 
affection — these  were  indeed  evidences  of  a  new  speech-maker. 
*  Waldegrave,  "  Moraoiwi,^  p.  83.  t  Ibt&  t  Hid,,  p.  85. 


12  HISTORY   OF    ENGLAND. 

The  king,  says  Waldegrave,  "  in  common  conversation  made  a 
frank  declaration  of  his  real  sentiments."  A  spurious  Speech  had 
been  circulated  in  town  and  country.  This  production  was  burnt 
by  the  common  hangman,  and  the  printer  was  ordered  to  be  pro- 
secuted. George,  who  sometimes  displayed  a  quaint  sarcastic 
humour,  "  hoped  the  man's  punishment  would  be  of  the  mildest 
sort,  because  he  had  read  both  speeches,  and,  as  far  as  he  under- 
stood either  of  them,  he  liked  the  spurious  speech  better  than  his 


own."  * 

The  electoral  troops  were  sent  home.  A  Militia  Bill  was  now 
passed,  although  a  similar  Bill  had  been  rejected  in  the  previous 
Session.  Under  this  Act  thirty-two  thousand  men  were  to  be 
called  out  in  England  and  Wales.  The  measure  was  received 
with  popular  approbation,  until  it  began  to  interfere  with  individual 
ease  and  freedom.  The  Protestant  dissenters  in  London  and  the 
provinces  remonstrated  against  the  possible  insertion  of  a  clause 
in  the  Bill  that  the  militia  might  be  exercised  on  Sundays  ;  but  the 
notion,  although  it  did  not  appear  to  excite  any  displeasure  amongst 
the  clergy  of  the  established  church,  was  very  wisely  given  up. 
Reinforcements  were  sent  to  the  earl  of  Loudoun,  who  now  com- 
manded in  America.  The  regular  army  had  been  increased  to 
45,000  men ;  and  Pitt,  at  this  time,  adopted  the  politic  suggestion 
made  by  Duncan  Forbes  in  1738,  that  the  Highlanders  should  be 
enlisted  in  the  service  of  the  State,  instead  of  being  prompted  to 
disaffection  by  needy  chiefs.  Two  Highland  regiments  were  raised, 
the  command  of  one  being  given  to  Simon  Fraser,  son  of  lord 
Lovat ;  of  the  other  to  Archibald  Montgomery,  brother  of  lord 
Eglington.  Twenty  years  afterwards,  in  one  of  his  great  speeches, 
in  which  Chatham  urged  conciliation  towards  "  our  brethren  in 
America,"  he  looked  back  upon  the  success  of  this  first  measure 
of  his  bold  statesmanship :  "  I  remember,  after  an  unnatural  re- 
bellion had  been  extinguished  in  the  northern  parts  of  this  island, 
that  I  employed  these  very  rebels  in  the  service  and  defence  of  their 
country.  They  were  reclaimed  by  this  means  ;  they  fought  our 
battles ;  they  cheerfully  bled  in  defence  of  those  liberties  which 
they  attempted  to  overthrow  but  a  few  years  before,  "f  As  the 
war  minister  of  George  II.,  Mr.  Pitt  had  to  modify  some  of  his  former 
opinions  with  regard  to  continental  alliances.  He  brought  down  a 
message  from  the  king  on  the  I7th  of  February,  to  ask  from  his 
faithful  Commons  that  they  would  assist  his  majesty  in  maintain- 
ing an  army  of  observation  to  protect  his  electoral  dominions,  and 


*  Waldegrave,   "  Memoirs,"  p.  89. 

t  TJhaekeray — "History  of  WiliJam  Piw,"  jun-i  TO'-  &•  ?•  399" 


SUBSIDY   TO    THE    KING   OF    PRUSSIA.  23 

to  fulfil  his  engagements  with  his  good  ally  the  king  of  Prussia. 
This  was  the  first  day  that  Pitt  had  entered  the  House  of  Com- 
mons since  his  accession  to  office.  His  appearance  there  had 
been  delayed  by  continued  illness.  He  followed  this  demonstra- 
tion of  his  individual  opinions,  by  moving  a  grant  of  2oo,ooo/.  in 
compliance  with  the  message.  Fox  twitted  his  rival  with  a  saying 
of  the  previous  year,  that  "  German  measures  would  be  a  mill-stone 
about  the  neck  of  the  minister."  Yet  Pitt  was  not  inconsistent  in 
proposing  this  measure.  He  had  told  lord  Hardwicke,  in  Septem- 
ber, 1755,  that  "he  thought  that  regard  ought  to  be  had  to  Han- 
over, if  it  should  be  attacked  on  our  account."*  Lord  Mahon  has 
very  justly  defended  Pitt  against  the  sneer  of  Fox.  "The  French 
were  preparing  to  invade  the  Electorate,  not  from  any  injury,  real 
or  pretended,  which  the  Electorate  had  done  them,  but  notoriously 
and  avowedly  as  a  side-blow  against  George  II., — as  a  retaliation  for 
the  measures  which  his  majesty  had  adopted  in  British  America."  f 
Hanover  was  about  to  be  attacked  on  our  account.  Walpole,  with 
reference  to  the  Prussian  subsidy,  bitterly  remarks,  "  One  cannot 
say  which  was  most  ridiculous, — the  richest  prince  in  Europe 
[Frederick]  begging  alms  for  his  own  country,  or  the  great  foe  of 
that  country  [George]  becoming  its  mendicant  almoner.":}:  Fred- 
erick of  Prussia  commissioned  the  British  envoy  to  express  his 
thanks  to  Mr.  Pitt  for  his  speech  of  the  i8th  of  February;  and  to 
inform  him  that  he  regarded  the  resolutions  of  Parliament  as  the 
strongest  assurances  that  can  be  given  of  the  favourable  and 
friendly  disposition  of  the  British  nation  towards  him.  Pitt,  in  his 
reply,  expressed  his  "  sentiments  of  veneration  and  zeal  for  a 
prince,  who  stands  the  unshaken  bulwark  of  Europe,  against  the 
most  powerful  and  malignant  confederacy  that  ever  yet  has  threat- 
ened the  independence  of  mankind."§ 

Amongst  the  difficult  questions  which  the  recently  formed 
Administration  had  to  deal  with,  was  that  of  the  fate  of  admiral 
Byng.  A  Court-Martial  upon  the  unfortunate  officer  commenced 
at  Portsmouth  on  the  28th  of  December.  In  every  town  and 
village  through  which  the  admiral  was  conveyed  from  Greenwich, 
escorted  by  horse-guards,  he  was  insulted  by  the  populace.  The 
trial  lasted  till  nearly  the  end  of  January.  Before  the  close  of  the 
proceedings,  the  Court-Martial  had  submitted  a  question  to  the 
Admiralty — whether  they  were  at  liberty  to  mitigate  the  I2th 
Article  of  War,  which  was  in  these  words  :  "  Every  person  in  the 

*  Doddington— -"  Diary,"  Sept.  i,  1755.  t  History,  vol.  iv.p.  196. 

t  "  Memoirs  of  George  II.,"  vol.  ii.  p.  31^. 

§  "  Chatham  Correspondence,"  vol.  i.  p.  224  and  p.  226. 


24  HISTORY   OF    ENGLAND. 

fleet,  who  through  cowardice,  negligence,  or  disaffection,  shall,  in 
time  of  action,  withdraw  or  keep  back,  or  not  come  into  the  fight 
or  engagement,  or  shall  not  do  his  utmost  to  take  or  destroy  every 
ship  which  it  shall  be  his  duty  to  engage,  and  to  assist  and  relieve 
all  and  every  of  his  majesty's  ships,  or  those  of  his  allies,  which  it 
shall  be  his  duty  to  assist  and  relieve,  every  such  person  so  offend- 
ing, and  being  convicted  thereof  by  the  sentence  of  a  court-martial, 
shall  suffer  death."  The  Admiralty  returned  for  answer  that  the 
Court  could  not  modify  the  Article  of  War.  The  unanimous 
verdict  was,  that  admiral  Byng  had  not  come  under  that  Article  by 
treachery  or  disaffection  ;  but  that  he  had  not  done  his  utmost  to 
relieve  the  castle  of  St.  Philip,  or  to  defeat  the  French  fleet;  and 
he  was  therefore  adjudged  to  be  shot  to  death.  But  the  Court 
also  agreed  to  recommend  the  admiral  to  the  mercy  of  the  Crown. 
Byng,  rejoiced  at  being  acquitted  of  cowardice,  heard  his  sentence 
with  composure.  It  was  perhaps  difficult  for  the  Crown  to  exer- 
cise its  prerogative  of  mercy,  amidst  the  popular  clamour  for  the 
execution  of  the  sentence.  "  Pitt  and  lord  Temple,"  says  VV aide- 
grave,  were  desirous  to  save  Byng;  "but  to  avoid  the  odium  of 
protecting  a  man  who  had  been  hanged  in  effigy  in  every  town  in 
England,  they  wanted  the  king  to  pardon  him  without  their  seeming 
to  interfere."  The  king,  he  adds,  "not  choosing  to  be  their  dupe, 
obliged  them  to  pull  off  the  mask,  and  the  sentence  against  the 
admiral  was  not  carried  into  execution  till,  by  their  behaviour  in 
Parliament,  they  had  given  public  proof  of  their  partiality."  It  is 
a  singular  commendation  of  the  king,  that  he  wished  to  damage  his 
ministers  by  exhibiting  them  opposed  to  a  popular  cry.  They  had 
the  House  of  Commons  with  them,  in  their  desire  for  mercy.  Pitt 
told  this  to  his  sovereign.  "Sir,"  said  George,  "you  have  taught 
me  to  look  for  the  sense  of  my  subjects  in  another  place  than  the 
House  of  Commons."  Every  effort  to  save  Byng  was  made  in 
vain.  His  execution  was  delayed,  whilst  a  Bill  passed  the  Com- 
mons to  absolve  the  members  of  the  Court-Martial  from  their  oath 
of  secresy,  as  it  was  alleged  that  they  had  something  of  importance 
to  say  with  regard  to  their  sentence.  The  Bill  was  sent  to  the 
Upper  House.  But  the  law  lords,  Hardwicke  and  Mansfield, 
having  examined  all  the  members  of  the  Court-Martial  upon  oath, 
and  finding  that  they  could  not  declare  their  knowledge  of  anything 
which  had  passed  previous  to  the  sentence  which  would  show  it  to 
be  unjust,  or  of  any  undue  practice  or  motive  to  influence  the' 
sentence,  the  Bill  was  rejected.  The  I4th  of  March  was  fixed  for 
the  execution  of  admiral  Byng.  He  was  shot  on  the  quarter-deck 
ftf  the  Monarque,  in  which  he  had  been  confined;  and  to  the  last 


NATIONAL    FEELING.  25 

he  displayed  a  calmness  and  resolution  which  were  sufficient  of 
themselves  to  exonerate  him  from  the  charge  that,  in  his  neglect 
of  his  duty,  he  had  acted  from  a  want  of  that  courage  which  is  the 
most  essential,  as  it  is  the  commonest,  attribute  of  every  sailor 
and  every  soldier,  whatever  rank  he  may  hold  in  the  service  of  his 
country. 

At  the  beginning  of  April,  1757,  Pitt,  Temple,  and  Legge,  were 
suddenly  dismissed  from  their  high  offices.  The  nation  could  not 
understand  this.  One  feeling,  however,  prevailed — that  these 
ministers  had  laboured  to  benefit  the  nation,  and  that  pitiful  court 
intrigues  had  been  too  powerful  for  them.  Smollett,  whose  "  Con- 
tinuation "  of  his  History  was  nearly  contemporaneous,  speaks  very 
vaguely  of  "  the  old  junto,"  who  had  "  found  the  new  associates 
very  unfit  for  their  purposes."  The  Memoirs  of  the  earl  of  Wal- 
degrave,  which  were  not  published  till  1821,  throw  light  upon  the 
proceedings  of  the  royal  closet.  In  February  this  nobleman  saw 
the  king ;  whp  expressed  his  dislike  to  Pitt  and  Temple  in  very 
strong  terms.  The  Secretary,  his  majesty  said,  made  him  long 
speeches,  which  might  be  very  fine,  but  were  above  his  compre- 
hension. Temple  was  pert,  sometimes  insolent,  and  when  he 
meant  to  be  civil  was  troublesome.  "  Go  to  Newcastle,"  said 
George ;  "  tell  him  I  do  not  look  upon  myself  as  a  king  whilst  I 
am  in  the  hands  of  these  scoundrels ;  that  I  am  determined  to  get 
rid  of  them  at  any  rate ;  that  I  expect  his  assistance,  and  that  he 
may  depend  on  my  favour  and  protection."  Newcastle  was  quite 
ready  to  second  the  king's  wishes ;  but  he  thought  it  more  prudent 
to  get  the  supplies  first,  and  obtain  an  acquittal  of  himself  and  his 
colleagues  of  1756,  under  the  Inquiry  pending  in  Parliament.* 
The  duke  of  Cumberland,  Waldegrave  says,  pressed  the  king  very 
strongly  that  Pitt  and  Temple  should  be  turned  out  without  further 
deliberation  ;  and  that  a  new  Administration  should  be  formed, 
before  he  went  to  Hanover  to  take  the  command  of  the  electoral 
forces.  To  depend  on  Pitt  for  supplies ;  to  have  the  popularity  of 
Pitt  ravish  half  his  laurels,  if  fortune  should  once  smile  upon  him, 
— were  apprehensions,  as  Walpole  alleges,  which  made  the  duke 
urge  his  royal  father  to  take  such  a  perilous  step.  When  the 
dismissal  of  the  ministers  was  known,  without  any  official  delin- 
quency or  public  misfortune  being  made  a  charge  against  them, 
the  voice  of  the  nation  was  expressed  in  the  most  unequivocal 
manner.  Pitt  and  Legge  received  the  freedom  of  London  from 
the  Common  Council,  presented  in  gold  boxes.  A  dozen  corpora- 
tions of  great  cities  followed  the  example.  "  It  rained  gold  boxes," 

*  Waldegrave,  "Memoirs,"  p.  96. 


26  HISTORY   OF   ENGLAND. 

says  Walpole.  Pitt  kept  very  quiet.  He  took  no  decided  part  in 
the  Inquiry  about  Minorca,  which  resulted,  not  in  a  vote  of  appro- 
bation or  a  vote  of  censure,  but  in  a  long  recapitulation  of  the 
circumstances,  ending  in  declaring  that  no  more  ships  and  no  more 
troops  could  have  been  sent  on  that  service.  Twelve  weeks  were 
now  spent  in  negotiations  for  the  formation  of  a  government. 
Newcastle  was  sent  for.  The  duke,  dreading  Pitt's  popularity, 
wished  to  coalesce  with  him.  Pitt  would  not  accept  office,  without 
the  entire  direction  of  the  war.  Newcastle  then  told  the  king, 
under  a  solemn  promise,  that  he  would  have  nothing  to  do  with  so 
intractable  a  man.  The  old  scheme  of  Newcastle  and  "  his  foot- 
men," as  the  king  termed  the  duke's  ministerial  dependents,  was 
then  resorted  to.  That  would  not  answer ;  and  Newcastle  and 
Pitt  were  brought  together  again,  by  the  mediation  of  lord  Ches- 
terfield and  lord  Bute.  The  king  was  enraged  that  Pitt  had  once 
more  been  applied  to,  under  the  violation  of  Newcastle's  pledge. 
George  then  tried  his  own  hand  at  making  a  ministry ;  and  pro- 
posed to  associate  his  personal  friend,  lord  Waldegrave,  with  Mr. 
Fox.  Lord  Holderness,  one  of  the  Secretaries  of  State,  and  the 
remaining  powerful  body  of  the  Newcastle  "  footmen," — powerful 
in  their  votes,  if  not  in  their  abilities, — threatened  to  resign. 
There  was  no  resource.  Pitt  saw  that  if  his  magnificent  boast, 
"  I  am  sure  that  I  can  save  this  country,  and  that  nobody  else 
can," — if  that  grand  ambition  was  to  be  realized, — he  must  not 
trust  alone  to  oratory  or  popularity;  he  must  command  parliament- 
ary support.  Newcastle  could  bring  that  capital  into  a  political 
partnership.  The  king  had  no  choice.  He  empowered  lord  Hard- 
wicke  to  negotiate  with  Newcastle  and  Pitt.  The  eloquent  Com- 
moner again  became  Secretary  of  State  upon  his  own  terms.  The 
influential  duke  returned  to  the  head  of  the  Treasury,  without  any 
real  power  in  the  direction  of  the  great  affairs  of  the  nation,  at  a  mem- 
orable crisis  in  its  fate.  On  the  2pth  of  June,  commenced  what  is 
emphatically  termed  "  Mr.  Pitt's  Administration."  It  mattered 
not  to  contemporaries  or  to  posterity,  who  was  First  Lord  of  the 
Treasury,  or  who  presided  over  the  Admiralty,  or  who  was  Com- 
mander-in-chief. It  was  "  Mr.  Pitt's  Administration." 

From  the  Midsummer  of  1756  to  the  Midsummer  of  1757,  whilst 
England  was  lying  under  the  dread  of  foreign  invasion  ;  calling  for 
vengeance  on  those  who  had  lost  Minorca  ;  distracted  by  political 
rivalries, — events  were  taking  place  in  the  most  distant  settlement 
of  the  East  India  Company,  of  which  the  nation  had  no  instant  cog- 
nizance, but  which  were  as  important  to  its  future  destiny  as  the 
changes  to  be  produced  by  the  altered  character  of  its  government. 


BLACK    HOLE    AT   CALCUTTA.  2J 

There  first  came,  slowly  travelling  for  months  from  the  Ganges  to 
the  Thames,  the  news  of  a  terrible  atrocity  of  oriental  despotism, 
which  filled  every  heart  with  grief  and  indignation.  Six  months 
later  the  report  came  of  a  swift  retribution,  inflicted  by  the  hero  of 
Arcot ;  and  six  months  after  that,  the  great  intelligence  arrived, 
that  a  victory  had  been  won — the  victory  of  Plassey,  which  raised 
the  British  merchant-settlers  of  India  into  the  condition  of  con- 
querors and  dictators,  and  laid  the  foundation  of  an  empire  which 
can  scarcely  be  contemplated .  by  us  at  this  day  without  a  mixed 
feeling  of  awe  and  pride .  The  fearful  tragedy  known  as  that  of 
the  Black  Hole  of  Calcutta  took  place  on  the  2oth  of  June,  1 756, 
after  the  city  had  been  taken  by  the  Subahdar  of  Bengal.  Calcutta 
was  retaken  by  Clive  on  the  2nd  of  January,  1757.  The  battle  of 
Plassey  was  won  by  Clive  on  the  23rd  of  June  of  the  same  year. 
We  must  briefly  relate  these  consecutive  events. 

The  rulers  of  Bengal,  Orissa,  and  Bahar,  called  Subahdars,  or 
'Nabobs,  professed  to  hold  allegiance  to  the  Great  Mogul,  but  really 
exercised  all  the  powers  of  sovereignty.  They  dwelt  at  their  capi- 
tal city  of  Moorshedabad.  In  April,  1756,  Surajah  Dowlah,  a  cruel, 
debauched,  and  ignorant  boy  of  nineteen,  succeeded  his  grandfather 
as  the  lord  of  these  vast  provinces.  He  coveted  the  wealth  which 
he  imagined  was  accumulated  in  the  British  factory  of  Calcutta  ; 
and  he  marched  from  Moorshedabad  to  Fort  William  with  a  great 
army.  The  governor,  and  the  English  captain  in  command,  es- 
caped in  terror,  and  left  the  defence  of  the  factory  to  the  servants 
of  the  Company.  The  Subahdar  having  bombarded  the  fort  for 
two  days,  further  resistance  was  unavailing.  Mr.  Holwell,  a  civil 
officer  of  the  Company,  who  had  been  chosen  to  act  as  a  com- 
mander during  the  two  days  of  their  defence,  was  called  before  the 
despot.  He  was  dissatisfied  to  have  found  only  fifty  thousand  ru- 
pees as  his  prize ;  but  he  assured  Mr.  Holwell  that  the  lives  of 
himself  and  of  his  fellow-prisoners  should  be  spared.  There  were 
a  hundred  and  forty-five  men  and  one  woman,  of  this  devoted  com- 
pany. They  were  to  be  secured  for  the  night  in  a  dungeon  of  the 
fort.  Into  that  den.  eighteen  feet  by  fourteen,  with  two  small  win- 
dows, were  these  hundred  and  forty-six  adults  forced  by  the  fero- 
cious guard  that  the  tyrant  had  set  over  them  ;  and  the  door  was 
closed.  Mr.  Holwell  spoke  from  the  window  to  an  old  officer,  who 
appeared  to  have  some  human  pity,  promising  a  reward  of  a  thou- 
sand rupees  if  a  portion  of  the  prisoners  by  his  influence  could  be 
removed  to  another  room.  The  officer  went  to  make  his  humane 
attempt.  He  returned  to  say  that  the  Nabob  was  asleep,  and 
could  not  be  disturbed.  Of  that  night  of  horror,  the  relation  given 


28  HISTORY   OF    ENGLAND. 

by  Mr.  Holwell  is  one  of  the  most  powerful  narratives  of  the  ex-- 
tremity  of  suffering  which  was  ever  penned.*  The  expedient  of 
the  prisoners  to  obtain  more  room  and  air,  some  sitting  down  never 
to  rise  again,  through  their  companions  falling  upon  them ;  the 
calling  out  to  the  guard  to  fire  and  relieve  them  from  their  misery; 
the  raging  thirst ;  the  delirium ;  the  stupefaction  ;  the  many  dead 
trampled  upon  by  the  few  living, — these  are  horrors  without  a  par- 
allel in  history  or  fiction.  An  order  for  the  release  of  the  prison- 
ers came  from  the  Subahdar  at  six  o'clock  in  the  morning.  One 
hundred  and  twenty-three  had  been  released  by  death.  The  Eng- 
lish lady  survived,  to  endure  the  harder  fate  of  being  consigned  to 
the  haram  of  the  Subahdar.  Surajah  Dowlah  called  for  Mr.  Hol- 
well. Unable  to  stand,  he  was  borne  before  the  despot,  who  ex- 
hibited no. remorse  for  the  acft  of  his  murderous  guards.  All  he 
talked  of  was  buried  treasure.  He  sent  Mr.  Holwell  and  two  of 
the  chiefs  of  the  factory  to  his  capital  as  prisoners ;  the  others 
were  set  at  liberty.  Fort  William  was  occupied  by  a  Mohamme- 
dan garrison  of  three  thousand  men  ;  and  the  victor  returned  to 
Moorshedabad,  and  decreed  that,  in  honour  of  his  triumph,  Cal- 
cutta should  be  called  by  the  name  which  signified  the  Port  of 
God. 

Colonel  Clive,  upon  his  return  to  India,  had  co-operated  with 
admiral  Watson,  who  was  in  command  of  a  British  squadron  off 
Bombay,  to  effect  the  destruction  of  a  formidable  body  of  pirates, 
who  issued  from  their  fortified  headland  of  Gheriah,  to  the  terror  of 
every  merchant  vessel  on  the  Indian  Ocean.  This  stronghold  was 
taken  without  much  effort.  Clive  returned  to  his  command  as  gov- 
ernor of  Fort  St.  David,  in  June.  It  was  not  till  August  that  the 
news  of  the  terrible  occurrences  at  Calcutta  reached  Madras.  Ad- 
miral Watson  was  at  anchor  in  the  roads.  Clive  was  sent  for  by 
the  Presidency,  and  the  command  of  an  expedition  was  offered  to 
him.  There  was  a  struggle  about  jthe  claims  of  a  senior  officer, 
who  thought  that  his  rank,  whatever  was  his  inexperience  of  Indian 
warfare,  ought  to  outweigh  the  deference  paid  to  a  young  man  who 
had  captured  and  defended  Arcot  and  won  the  great  victory  of 
Arnee.  The  Presidency  were  firm  ;  and  so  was  the  jealous  colonel 
Adlercron.  The  Council  of  Madras  gave  the  command  to  Clive. 
The  colonel,  who  had  the  control  of  the  king's  stores,  refused  him 
the  royal  artillery.  With  nine  hundred  Europeans — which  number 
included  the  39th  regiment, — that  regiment  which,  after  many  glo- 
rious campaigns,  proudly  bears  on  its  colours  the  suggestive  in- 
scription, "  Primus  in  Indis," — the  armament  set  sail.  The  winds 

*  Printed  first  in  the  "  Annual  Register"  for  1758. 


CALCUTTA    RETAKEN    BY    CLIVE   AND    WATSON.  29 

were  contrary.  Two  months  elapsed  before  they  entered  the  Hoogh- 
ly.  Calcutta  was  taken  on  the  2nd  of  January,  with  little  trouble. 
At  the  head  of  forty  thousand  men,  Surajah  Dowlah  marched  from 
Moorshedabad,  and  encamped  near  Fort  William.  Clive  went  forth 
to  a  night  attack  upon  the  camp,  but  retired,  after  some  loss,  hav- 
ing been  embarrassed  by  a  thick  fog.  Yet  the  Subahdar,  terrified 
by  this  exhibition  of  prowess  sought  to  conclude  a  peace  with  the 
English,  and  yielded  to  every  condition  that  was  proposed  for  the 
future  security  of  Calcutta.  There  was  no  satisfaction  for  the  mur- 
ders of  the  2oth  of  June.  Clive  even  consented  to  a  treaty  of  al- 
liance with  this  miscreant.  The  honest  admiral  refused  to  sign 
this  agreement.  The  Calcutta  merchants  had  pressed  it  upon  Clive, 
as  they  thought  the  alliance  would  enable  them  to  get  rid  of  the 
rival  French  station  at  Chandernagore.  The  Subahdar  gave  a 
doubtful  answer  to  their  proposal  to  attack  this  settlement,  which 
Clive  interpreted  as  an  assent.  The  French  were  overpowered,  and 
surrendered  their  fort.  Surajah  Dowlah  was  now  indignant  against 
his  recent  allies  ;  and  sought  the  friendship  of  the  French  officers. 
Clive,  called  by  the  natives  "  the  daring  in  war,"  was  also  the  most 
adroit,  and, — for  the  truth  cannot  be  disguised, — the  most  unscru- 
pulous m  policy.  The  English  resident  at  the  Court  of  Moorsheda- 
bad, under  Clive's  instructions,  encouraged  a  conspiracy  to  de- 
pose the  Subahdar,  and  to  raise  his  general,  Meer  Jaffier,  to  the  su- 
preme power.  A  Hindoo  of  great  wealth  and  influence,  Omichund, 
engaged  in  this  conspiracy.  After  it  had  proceeded  so  far  as  to  be- 
come the  subject  of  a  treaty  between  a  select  Committee  at  Cal- 
cutta and  Meer  Jaffier,  Omichund  demanded  that  a  condition  should 
be  inserted  in  that  treaty  to  pay  him  thirty  lacs  of  rupees  as  a  re- 
ward for  his  service.  The  merchants  at  Calcutta  desired  the  largest 
share  of  any  donation  from  Meer  Jaffier,  as  a  consideration  for 
themselves,  and  were  by  no  means  willing  that  three  hundred  thou- 
sand pounds  should  go  to  a  crafty  Hindoo.  Clive  suggested  an  ex- 
pedient to  secure  Omichund's  fidelity,  and  yet  not  to  comply  with 
his  demands — to  have  two  treaties  drawn ;  a  real  one  on  red 
paper,  a  fictitious  one  on  white.  The  white  treaty  was  to  be  shown 
to  Omichund,  and  he  was  to  see  with  his  own  eyes  that  he  had 
been  properly  cared  for.  Clive  and  the  Committee  signed  this ; 
as  well  as  the  red  treaty,  which  was  to  go  to  Meer  Jaffier.  Admiral 
Watson  refused  to  sign  the  treacherous  document.  On  the  ipth 
of  May,  1773,  Clive  stood  up  in  his  place  in  the  House  of  Com- 
mons, to  defend  himself  upon  this  charge  against  him,  amongst 
other  accusatibns.  He  boldly  acknowledged  that  the  stratagem  of 
the  two  treaties  was  his  invention ; — that  admiral  Watson  did  not 


30  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

sign  it ;  but  that  he  should  have  thought  himself  authorised  to  »ign 
for  him  in  consequence  of  a  conversation  ;  that  the  person  who  did 
sign  thought  he  had  sufficient  authority  for  so  doing.  "  He  [Clive] 
forged  admiral  Watson's  name,"  says  lord  Macaulay.  Clive  thus 
defended  his  conduct :  "  The  treaty  was  immediately  sent  to  Omi- 
chund,  who  did  not  suspect  the  stratagem.  The  event  took  place, 
and  success  attended  it.  The  House,  I  am  fully  persuaded,  will 
agree  with  me,  that  when  the  very  existence  of  the  Company  was 
at  stake,  and  the  lives  of  these  people  [the  conspirators]  so  precari- 
ously situated,  and  so  certain  to  be  destroyed,  it  was  a  matter  of  true 
policy  and  justice  to  deceive  such  a  villain."  *  The  courage,  the1 
perseverance,  the  unconquerable  energy  of  Clive  have  furnished 
examples  to  many  in  India  who  have  emulated  his  true  glory. 
Thank  God,  the  innate  integrity  of  the  British  character  has,  for 
the  most  part,  preserved  us  from  such  exhibitions  of  "  true  policy 
and  justice." 

The  English  resident,  Mr.  Watts,  left  Moorshedabad.  Clive 
wrote  a  letter  of  defiance  to  Surajah  Dowlah,  and  marched  towards 
his  capital.  The  Subahdar  had  come  forth  from  his  city,  as  popu- 
lous as  the  London  of  a  century  ago,  to  annihilate  the  paltry  army 
of  a  thousand  English,  and  their  two  thousand  Sepoys  disciplined 
by  English  officers,  who  dared  to  encounter  his  sixty  thousand. 
He  reached  the  village  of  Plassey  with  all  the  panoply  of  original 
warfare.  His  artillery  alone  appeared  sufficient  to  sweep  away 
those  who  brought  only  eight  field  pieces  and  two  howitzers  to 
meet  his  fifty  heavy  guns.  Each  gun  was  drawn  by  forty  yoke  of 
oxen  ;  and  a  trained  elephant  was  behind  each  gun  to  urge  it  over 
rough  ground  or  up  steep  ascents.  Meer  Jaffier  had  not  performed 
his  promise  to  join  the  English  with  a  division  of  the  Subahdar's 
army.  It  was  a  time  of  terrible  anxiety  with  the  English  com- 
mander. Should  he  venture  to  give  battle  without  the  aid  of  a 
native  force  ?  He  submitted  his  doubt  to  a  Council  of  War. 
Twelve  officers,  himself  amongst  the  number,  voted  for  delay. 
Seven  voted  for  instant  action.  Clive  reviewed  the  arguments  on 
each  side,  and  finally  cast  away  his  doubts.  He  determined  to 
fight,  without  which  departure  from  the  opinion  of  the  majority,  he 
afterwards  said,  the  English  would  never  have  been  masters  of 
Bengal.  On  the  22nd  of  June,  his  little  army  marched  fifteen 
miles,  passed  the  Hooghly,  and  at  one  o'clock  of  the  morning  of 
the  23rd  rested  under  the  mangoe-trees  of  Plassey.  As  the  day 
broke,  the  vast  legions  of  the  Subahdar, — fifteen  thousand  cavalry, 
forty-five  thousand  infantry, — some  armed  with  muskets,  some  with 

*  *'  Parliamentary  History,"  vol.  xvii.  col.  873. 


SURAJAH    DOWLAH    DEPOSED.  3! 

bows  and  arrows,  began  to  surround  the  mangoe-grove  and  the 
hunting-lodge  where  Give  had  watched  through  the  night.  There 
was  a  cannonade  for  several  hours.  The  great  guns  of  Surajah 
Dowlah  did  little  execution.  The  small  field-pieces  of  Clive  were 
well  served.  One  of  the  chief  Mohammedan  leaders  having  fallen, 
disorder  ensued,  and  the  Subahdar  was  advised  to  retreat.  He 
himself  fled  upon  a  swift  camel  to  Moorshedabad.  When  the 
British  forces  began  to  pursue,  the  victory  became  complete.  Meer 
Jaffier  joined  the  conquerors  the  next  day.  Surajah  Dowlah  did 
not  consider  himself  safe  in  his  capital ;  and  he  preferred  to  seek 
the  protection  of  a  French  detachment  at  Patna.  He  escaped  from 
his  palace  disguised  ;  ascended  the  Ganges  in  a  small  boat ;  and 
fancied  himself  secure.  A  peasant  whose  ears  he  had  cut  off  rec- 
ognised his  oppressor,  and  with  some  soldiers  brought  him  back  to 
Moorshedabad.  In  his  presence-chamber  now  sat  Meer  Jaffier, 
to  whose  knees  the  wretched  youth  crawled  for  mercy.  That  night 
Surajah  Dowlah  was  murdered  in  his  prison,  by  the  orders  of  Meer 
Jaffier's  son,  a  boy  as  blood-thirsty  as  himself.  At  the  installation 
of  Meer  Jaffier.  as  Subahdar  of  Bengal,  Clive  conducted  him  to  the 
seat  of  honour.  His  gratitude  was  not  withheld  from  those  who 
had  raised  him  to  his  power.  Under  the  treaty  made  before  the 
battle  of  Plassey,  large  concessions  were  to  be  made  to  the  Presi- 
dency of  Calcutta ;  and  money  amounting  to  two  millions  and  three- 
quarters  sterling  was  now  granted  as  a  payment  to  the  fleet,  the 
troops,  and  the  Committee,  by  whose  agency  this  revolution  was 
effected.  Clive  was  content  with  something  under  three  hundred 
thousand  pounds.  He  subsequently  declared  in  the  House  of  Com- 
mons, that  when  he  walked  through  the  Treasury  at  Moorsheda- 
bad, and  saw  gold  and  silver  and  jewels  piled  up  to  the  right  and 
the  left,  he  might  have  helped  himself  to  what  he  pleased.  He 
added,  with  an  oath,  "at  this  moment  do  I  stand  astonished  at  my 
own  moderation."  When  Omichund  was  denied  his  expected 
gratuity,  and  was  told  of  the  disgraceful  fraud  that  had  been  prac- 
tised upon  him,  he  fainted,  and  was  carried  home,  to  exhibit  during 
the  small  remainder  of  his  days,  an  impaired  intellect,  and  to  die  a 
broken-hearted  idiot. 

A  statute  of  Clive  has  recently  been  erected  in  Whitehall.  It 
is  highly  characteristic  of  a  man  of  strong  will  and  undaunted 
courage — "  not  a  man  to  do  anything  by  halves."  Macaulay  uses 
this  phrase  in  speaking  of  dive's  participation  in  the  fraud  and 
forgery  by  which  Omichund  was  deceived.  But  this  determination 
to  do  nothing  by  halves,  though  it  betrayed  Clive  into  a  dishon- 
ourable action,  made  him  a  "  heaven-born  general,"  as  Pitt  called 


32  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

him.  -His  wondrous  energy  led  him,  after  he  had  placed  Meet 
Jaffier  on  the  throne  of  Bengal,  never  to  rest  until  the  ascendancy 
of  the  English  Company  in  that  province  was  supreme,  undisturbed 
by  French  or  Dutch  rivalry.  Exactly  a  year  after  the  battle  of 
Plassey,  a  Commission  arrived  at  Bengal  from  London,  remodel- 
ling the  Presidency,  and  not  including  Clive  in  the  nomination  of 
officers.  The  news  of  the  great  victory  had  not  reached  the  India 
House  when  the  Court  of  Directors  thus  threw  a  slight  upon  the 
only  man  who  could  preserve  their  ascendancy.  But  the  members 
of  the  Presidency  at  Bengal  had  the  good  sense  to  request  Clive 
to  take  the  government  upon  himself.  By  his  exertions,  and 
through  his  example,  the  French  were  gradually  driven  from  every 
stronghold;  and  in  six  months  after  the  accession  'of  George  III. 
not  a  vestige  of  the  supremacy  which  Dupleix  and  Bussy  and  Lally 
had  won  for  them,  remained  In  the  peninsula. 


THE    ADMINISTRATION. 


CHAPTER  II. 

The  Administration. — Pitt's  sole  conduct  of  the  war  and  of  foreign  affairs. — Frederick'* 
second  campaign. — Victory  of  Prague. — Defeat  at  Kolin. — Failure  at  Rochefort. — 
Convention  of  Closter-Seven. — Failure  of  expedition  against  Louisbourg. — Riot» 
about  the  Militia  Act.— Frederick's  victory  of  Rosbach. — Subsidy  to  Prussia. — Cher- 
bourg taken,  and  its  works  demolished. — St.  Maloes. — Operations  on  the  African 
coast. —  Successful  expedition  against  Louisbourg. — The  turning  point  in  Pitt's  Ad- 
ministration.— Frederick's  third  campaign. — Zorndorf. — Hochkirchen. — Wolfe  ap- 
pointed to  command  an  expedition  to  Quebec. — The  battle  of  Minden. — Canada. — 
Operations  in  North  America.— Wolfe  in  the  St.  Lawrence. — His  desponding  letter. — 
Heights  of  Abraham. —Death  of  Wolfe. — Quebec  surrendered. — Hawke's  victory  in 
Quiberon  Bay. — Death  of  George  the  Second. 

THE  appointments  of  several  of  Mr.  Pitt's  political  friends  to 
high  offices,  in  the  final  arrangement  of  the  Administration,  excited 
no  surprise.  Earl  Temple  became  Lord  Privy  Seal,  and  Mr.  Legge, 
Chancellor  of  the  Exchequer.  But  the  re-appointment  of  lord 
Anson  to  the  Admiralty — unpopular  as  he  was,  abused  as  he  had 
been  by  those  who  were  now  to  be  his  associates — was  regarded 
as  "  a  most  surprising  phenomenon."*  He  had  been  himself  a 
wretched  administrator — "  an  incapable  object,"  as  Walpole  terms 
him.  It  is  stated  that  Pitt  took  effectual  means  to  neutralize 
Anson's  incapacity.  He  stipulated  with  the  king  that  the  corre- 
spondence with  naval  commanders  should  be  in  his  own  hands,  and 
that  the  Board  of  Admiralty  should  sign  the  dispatches  without 
reading  them.f  Doubtful  as  this  statement  may  appear,  it  is  un- 
questionable that  Pitt,  from  the  hour  of  his  triumphant  return  to 
that  post  which  involved  the  whole  conduct  of  foreign  affairs  and 
of  the  war,  determined  that  no  coadjutator  should  interfere  with  his 
plans.  The  prospect  before  him  was  not  very  brilliant.  The 
nation  was  committed  to  its  alliance  with  Frederick  II. ;  and  at  the 
very  moment  when  the  new  ministry  had  entered  upon  their  duties, 
came  the  news  of  a  great  disaster — "  the  reversal  of  all  the  king  of 
Prussia's  triumphs."  f  Frederick  had  commenced  his  second  cam- 
paign at  the  end  of  April.  Even  in  the  days  of  Marlborough, 
Europe  had  not  seen  such  a  vast  array  of  mighty  armies  moving 
in  every  direction  —  Austrians,  troops  of  the  Empire,  French, 
Swedes — four  hundred  and  thirty  thousand  men  gathering  together 
to  crush  the  prince  of  a  small  German  state,  who  had  only  a  hun- 

*  Waldegrave — "  Memoirs,"  p.  155. 

t  Thackeray—"  Life  of  Chatham,"  vol.  i.  p.  293.        J  Walpole  to  Mann,  July  3. 

VOL.  VI.— 3 


34  HISTORY   OF    ENGLAND. 

dred  and  fifty  thousand  men  in  the  field  to  encounter  this  over- 
whelming allied  force.  The  Russians  in  the  campaign  of  1757 
were  merely  committing  ravages  in  the  provinces  beyond  the 
Vistula.  The  English  and  Hanoverian  army,  commanded  by  the 
duke  of  Cumberland,  was  relied  upon  to  prevent  the  French  attack- 
ing Prussia.  There  were  vast  odds  against  the  success  of  Frederick, 
according  to  ordinary  calculations.  The  great  writer  and  states- 
man, Edmund  Burke,  who  at  this  time  influenced  public  opinion, 
not  from  his  place  in  Parliament  but  from  Messrs.  Dodsley's  shop 
in  Pali-Mall,  thus  describes  the  one  resource  that  enabled  Frederick 
"  to  sustain  the  violence  of  so  many  shocks  " — his  vast  powers  of 
mind  :  "  His  astonishing  economy,  the  incomparable  order  of  his 
finances,  the  discipline  of  his  armies  beyond  all  praise,  a  sagacity 
that  foresaw  everything,  a  constancy  that  no  labour  could  subdue, 
a  courage  that  no  danger  could  dismay,  an  intuitive  glance  that 
catches  the  decisive  moment — all  these  seemed  to  form  a  sort  of 
balance  to  the  vast  weight  against  him,  turned  the  wishes  of  his 
friends  into  hopes,  and  made  them  depend  upon  resources  that  are 
not  within  the  power  of  calculation."  *  At  the  opening  of  this  cam- 
paign Frederick  saw  that  he  should  first  have  to  encounter  Austria. 
He  marched  from  Saxony  into  Bohemia  by  four  different  mountain 
passes ;  purposing  to  unite  his  detachments  in  the  environs  of 
Prague.  Before  this  city  the  Austrian  marshal,  Browne,  was  en- 
camped, in  a  position  almost  impregnable.  Frederick  waited  for 
his  gallant  companion-in-arms,  marshal  Schwerin,  to  join  him;  and 
then,  on  the  6th  of  May,  he  fought  one  of  the  most  sanguinary  bat- 
tles on  record.  The  conflict  lasted  eleven  hours  ;  the  Prussians 
losing  eighteen  thousand  men,  and  the  Austrians  twenty-four  thou- 
sand. The  brave  old  marshal  fell,  leading  his  regiment,  which  had 
given  way,  to  the  thick  of  the  battle,  waving  the  national  standard 
of  the  black  eagle  which  he  had  snatched  from  an  ensign.  The 
Austrian  commander,  marshal  Browne,  was  also  mortally  wounded. 
The  king  displayed  that  personal  intrepidity  which  never  failed 
him  after  his  first  battle  of  Molwitz.  His  victory  was  complete. 
Prague  was  then  bombarded,  and  for  three  weeks  did  its  unfor- 
tunate inhabitants  endure  the  horrors  of  war,  with  more  than  its 
usual  calamities.  Twelve  thousand  famished  victims,  whose  houses 
had  been  destroyed,  were  turned  out  of  the  gates  of  Prague,  that 
more  food  might  be  left  to  its  defenders.  They  were  driven  back 
again  by  the  unpitying  Prussians.  The  city  resolutely  held  out. 

*  "  Annual  Register  "  for  1758 — the  first  of  the  series.  There  is  no  more  spirited,  or, 
in  the  main,  more  correct  narrative  of  this  eventful  period,  than  in  tbe  annual  miscellany 
which  the  genius  of  Burke  at  once  raised  to  a  high  reputation. 


Pal 
FAILURE    AT    ROCHEFORT.    \_0s  Kng6'68'  35 

A  great  division  of  the  Austrian  army  under  marshal  Daun  was 
advancing  for  its  relief.  On  the  i;th  of  June.  Frederick  fought 
the  battle  of  Kolin,  with  an  inadequate  force ;  and  he  was  defeated 
with  the  loss  of  thirteen  thousand  men.  Six  times  did  he  lead  his 
cavalry  to  the  charge  against  the  Austrian  position.  He  was  ad- 
vancing the  seventh  time,  with  only  forty  men,  when  an  English 
officer  said  to  him,  "  Is  your  majesty  going  to  storm  the  battery  by 
yourself  ?  "  He  at  last  ordered  the  retreat ;  and  riding  off  alone, 
he  was  found  seated  by  the  side  of  a  well,  drawing  figures  in  the 
sand  with  his  stick.  The  siege  of  Prague  was  raised ;  and  the 
Prussians  hastily  marched  out  of  Bohemia. 

Under  this  great  reverse  of  their  one  ally,  the  English  govern- 
ment turned  its  attention  to  naval  enterprises.  Something,  indeed, 
might  be  expected  from  the  army  under  the  duke  of  Cumberland ; 
and  a  great  success  on  the  coast  of  France  would  raise  the  spirits 
of  the  people,  who  were  lamenting  over  the  fatal  day  of  Kolin. 
Such  an  enterprise  would  operate  as  an  important  diversion  of  the 
French  from  the  war  in  Germany.  An  expedition  was  sent  out, 
in  September,  under  the  command  of  sir  Edward  Hawke  and  sir 
John  Mordaunt.  Sixteen  ships  of  the  line  and  ten  regiments  of 
foot  were  destined  for  an  attack  on  the  great  arsenal  of  Rochefort. 
The  French  coast  was  without  many  troops  for  its  defence.  Louis 
XV.,  when  he  heard  of  the  arrival  of  an  English  armament  at  the 
mouth  of  the  Charente,  was  fully  convinced  that  Rochefort  would 
fall.  The  fortified  island  of  Aix  was  attacked  by  captain  Howe, 
who  anchored  his  ship  within  fifty  yards  of  the  fort,  and  after  an 
hour  silenced  the  French  batteries.  General  Conway  took  posses- 
sion of  the  citadel.*  After  a  week  spent  in  councils  of  war,  it  was 
agreed  that  the  expedition  should  return  home.  Mordaunt  and 
Hawke  were  at  issue.  The  general  required  to  be  assured  by  the 
admiral,  that  if  any  mishap  occurred  in  the  attack  upon  Rochefort, 
such  arrangements  could  be  made  as  would  allow  the  troops  to  re- 
embark.  Hawke  said,  that  must  depend  upon  wind  and  weather. 
We  have  a  letter  of  general  Conway,  in  which  he  writes  to  his 
brother  about  "  resolutions  and  irresolutions."  .  ..."  I  am 
sorry  to  say  that  I  think,  on  the  whole,  we  make  a  pitiful  figure  in 
not  attempting  anything.  .  .  .  For  the  only  time  of  my  life  I 
dread  to  come  back  to  England."  f  Colonel  Wolfe,  when  these 
miserable  discussions  were  going  on  between  the  commanders, 
said,  that  if  they  would  give  him  three  ships  and  five  hundred  men 
he  would  take  Rochefort.  Pitt,  when  he  wanted  such  a  soldier, 

*  Captain  Rodney's  Letter  of  S«pt.  23,  in  "  Grenville  Paf«rs." 
t  MS.  collection  of  "Conway's  Letters." 


36  HISTORY   OF    ENGLAND. 

did  not  forget  Wolfe.  Mordaunt  was  acquitted  by  a  court-martial. 
Other  evil  tidings  had  travelled  to  England,  thick  and  fast.  The 
news  had  come  that  the  duke  de  Richelieu  had  compelled  the  duke 
of  Cumberland,  after  a  series  of  retreats,  to  leave  Hanover  to  the 
mercy  of  the  French ;  and  being  pursued  to  Stade,  he  had  agreed 
to  a  capitulation,  known  as  the  Convention  of  Closter-Seven  ;  under 
which  all  his  Hessians  and  Brunswickers  were  to  be  disbanded, 
and  all  his  Hanoverians  were  to  be  sent  into  various  cantonments. 
The  duke  was  insulted  by  his  father  when  he  came  home,  and  re- 
signed his  post  as  commander-in-chief.  George  had  turned  his 
back  upon  his  favourite  son  when  they  first  met,  and  said  aloud, 
"  He  has  ruined  me  and  disgraced  himself."  The  indignation  of 
the  English  people  was  extreme.  They  associated  in  their  minds^ 
the  retreat  from  Rochefort,  and  the  surrender  at  Stade,  as  the  re- 
sult of  some  treachery  or  court  intrigue.  "  The  people  will  not  be 
persuaded  that  this  pacific  disposition  [at  Rochefort]  was  not  a 
preliminary  for  the  convention  of  Stade."*  The  public  discontent 
was  at  its  height  when  the  intelligence  arrived  that  lord  Loudoun, 
having  the  command  of  a  force  of  twelve  thousand  men,  furnished 
by  large  reinforcements  from  home,  had  shrunk  from  attacking 
Louisbourg ;  and  that  admiral  Holbourne,  the  naval  commander, 
hesitated  about  imperilling  his  squadron  of  eighteen  ships  of  the 
line  in  an  attack  upon  the  French  squadron  of  nineteen  ships  of 
the  line.  When  this  account  ca.me,  Horace  Walpole  might  well 
write,  "  It  is  time  for  England  to  slip  her  cables,  and  float  away 
into  some  unknown  ocean."  f  To  crown  the  misfortunes  of  the 
first  three  months  of  Pitt's  administration,  there  were  serious  dis- 
turbances in  various  parts  of  the  country  about  the  Militia  Act, 
which  came  into  operation  at  that  time.  The  people  were  persuad- 
ed that,  when  enrolled,  they  were  liable  to  be  draughted  into  the 
king's  forces  and  be  sent  abroad.  It  was  in  vain  to  urge  the  pre- 
cise words  of  the  Statute.  Yeomen,  farmers,  and  labourers  were 
obstinately  incredulous  ;  and  in  some  places  the  timid  magistrates 
were  obliged  to  postpone  their  meetings  for  enrolling  men,  to  pre- 
vent the  violence  which  the  ignorant  multitudes  threatened.  Such 
were  the  blessings  produced  by  the  want  of  publicity  for  parliament- 
ary proceedings ;  and  by  the  utter  deficiency  of  ability  in  the  con- 
ductors of  provincial  newspapers  to  treat  any  social  question  as  a 
matter  for  elucidation."  J  Their  local  "  Accidents  and  Offences," 

*  Potter  to  Pitt — "  Chatham  Correspondence,"  vol.  i.  p.  277. 

t  Letter  to  Mann,  Sept.  3. 

t  Mr.  Edward  Baines  in  the  Life  of  his  father,  says — speaking  of  the  Leeds  paper  which 
for  half  a  century  has  held  so  distinguished  a  place  amongst  Journals — "  Up  to  the  year 
1801,  the  '  Mercury,'  like  almost  every  other  provincial  paper,  had  no  editorial  comments 
whatever." 


RIOTS   ABOUT   THE   MILITIA   ACT.  37 

the  appointment  of  the  parish  beadle,  or  the  marriage  of  the  squire's 
daughter,  constituted  their  notion  of  public  instruction. 

At  the  end  of  October,  Pitt  wrote  to  Grenville,  "  The  king  of 
Prussia  keeps  the  field,  and  his  cause  is  still  alive.  An  event  or 
two  may  yet  change  the  gloomy  prospect.  Immense  expense  I  see 
is  unavoidable,  and  the  heavier  load  of  national  dishonour  threatens 
to  sink  us  with  double  weight  of  misfortune."  *  An  event  did  come 
which  did  change  the  gloomy  prospect.  On  the  I5th  of  November 
Pitt  wrote  to  Grenville,  "  The  king  of  Prussia  has  gained  a  complete 
victory  over  the  prince  de  Soubise,  near  Weisenfels  in  Saxony."  f 
Wondrous  change  of  fortune,  produced  by  the  unshaken  constancy 
of  one  man  surrounded  by  dangers  on  every  side.  The  Russians 
were  desolating  Frederick's  eastern  provinces.  Silesia  was  filled 
with  Austrians.  He  was  urlder  the  ban  of  the  Empire,  every  Ger- 
man State  being  forbidden  to  give  him  aid.  A  letter  published  in 
the  English  papers  at  the  end  of  August,  says,  "  many  persons 
who  saw  the  king  of  Prussia,  when  he  passed  lately  through  Leip- 
sic,  cannot  express  how  much  he  is  altered.  They  say  he  is  so 
much  worn  away  that  they  scarce  knew  him. "  t  The  final  catas- 
trophe— a  ruin  as  complete  as  that  of  Charles  the  Twelfth  at 
Pultowa — seemed  fast  approaching.  The  prince  de  Soubise,  with 
an  army  of  forty  thousand  French,  and  twenty  thousand  troops  of 
the  Empire,  was  encamped  near  Mucheln.  Frederick,  with  twenty- 
two  thousand  of  his  Prussians,  had  marched  to  encounter  this  un- 
equal force.  After  some  changes  of  position  on  either  side,  on  the 
5th  of  November,  Soubise  was  suddenly  attacked,  when  he  thought 
that  the  king  was  retreating.  Never  was  victory  more  complete 
than  in  this  short  battle  of  Rosbach.  It  was  one  universal  rout. 
The  French  and  the  Imperial  troops  vied  with  each  other  in  the 
swiftness  of  their  flight.  They  left  seven  thousand  prisoners, 
guns,  colours,  baggage — all  that  could  manifest  the  extent  of  *.heir 
humiliation.  Before  the  battle,  Soubise  had  sent  a  dispatch  to 
Louis  to  announce  that  he  might  be  expected  snon  to  arrive  in 
Paris  with  the  king  of  Prussia  as  his  captive.  The  French  officers 
looked  upon  the  little  Prussian  army,  and  laughed  at  the  presump- 
tion of  Monsieur  le  Marquis  de  Brandenbourg.  Frederick  indulged 
himself,  as  was  his  custom  whether  victorious  or  defeated,  by  wri- 
ting some  very  indifferent  occasional  verses  to  bid  farewell  to  the 
runaway  French.  He  then  turned  to  real  business.  He  would  re- 
cover Silesia  before  the  approaching  winter  should  prevent  any 
military  operations.  By  forced  marches  he  reached  the  neighbour- 

*  "  Grenville  Papers,"  vol.  i.  p.  227.  t  Ibid.,  p.  229. 

t  "  Annual  Register,"  1758,  p.  20. 


38 


HISTORY  "OF   ENGLAND. 


hood  of  Breslau.  Here  prince  Charles  of  Lorraine  was  at  the  head 
of  an  army  of  Austrians,  exceeding  sixty  thousand  men.  They 
met  at  the  village  of  Leuthen,  near  the  woods  of  Lissa,  on  the  5th 
of  December;  and  thus  this  greatest  of  Frederick's  battles  is 
known  by  either  name.  This  was  no  sudden  rout  like  that  of 
Rosbach.  The  Austrians  fought  bravely ;  but  the  genius  of  the 
Prussian  leader  gave  him  a  mighty  victory,  which  Napoleon  said 
was  of  itself  sufficient  to  place  Frederick  in  the  rank  of  the  great- 
est generals.  When  this  wonderful  campaign  shall  come  to  be 
described  by  a  historian  equal  to  the  theme,  we  may  perhaps  under- 
stand the  meaning  of  the  words,  "  there  were  great  kings  before 
Napoleon."  The  writer  to  whom  this  task  is  allotted,  has  briefly 
told  us  what  he  thinks  of  Rosbach  and  Leuthen  :  "  Austerlitz  and 
Wagram  shot  away  more  gunpowder — gunpowder  probably  in  the 
proportion  of  ten  to  one,  or  a  hundred  to  one  ;  but  neither  of  them 
was  tenth-part  such  a  beating  to  your  enemy  as  that  of  Rosbach, 
brought  about  by  strategic  art,  human  ingenuity,  and  intrepidity, 
and  the  loss  of  four  hundred  and  seventy-eight  men.  Leuthen  too, 
the  battle  of  Leuthen  (though  so  few  English  readers  ever  heard 
of  it)  may  very  well  hold  up  its  head  beside  any  victory  gained  by 
Napoleon  or  another.  For  the  odds  were  not  far  from  three  to 
one ;  the  soldiers  were  of  not  far  from  equal  quality;  and  only  the 
General  was  consummately  superior,  and  the  defeat  a  destruction."* 
The  English  people  of  1757  did  know  something  of  Rosbach  and 
of  Leuthen.  They  forgot  their  own  national  misfortunes  and  dis- 
graces in  the  triumphs  of  their  great  ally,  the  king  of  Prussia. 
"  All  England  has  kept  his  birth-day,"  writes  Walpole.  "  The 
people,  I  believe,  begin  to  think  that  Prussia  is  some  part  of  Old 
England." 

The  defeat  of  the  French  at  Rosbach  led  the  king  of  England 
to  refuse  to  ratify  the  Convention  of  Closter-Seven.  "  Some  tri- 
fling infractions  of  the  neutrality  on  the  part  of  the  French,"  accord- 
ing to  Walpole,  "  were  pretended  to  cover  this  notorious  breach  of 
faith."  f  Others  hold  that  these  "  trifling  infractions  of  the  neu- 
trality "  consisted  in  the  grossest  cruelties  and  extortions  exercised 
by  the  French  on  the  Electorate.  Prince  Ferdinand  of  Brunswick, 
a  distinguished  officer  in  the  Prussian  army,  was  recommended  by 
Frederick  to  assume  the  command  of  the  Hanoverian  troops,  who 
were  thus  freed  to  take  part  in  the  campaign  of  1758.  The  Session 
of  the  English  Parliament  was  opened  on  the  ist  of  December. 
The  king  recommended  that  his  "good  brother  and  ally,"  the  king 

*  Carlyle — "  Friedrich  II."  vol.  i.  p.  10. 
t  "  Memoirs  of  George  II.,"  vol.  iii.  p.  Si. 


SUBSIDY   TO   PRUSSIA.  39 

of  Prussia,  "  should  receive  all  the  support  which  his  magnanimity 
deserved."  A  subsidy  of  ,£670,000  was  voted,  with  only  one  dis- 
sentient voice.  His  majesty  by  a  message  announced  that  the  army 
formed  in  his  electoral  dominions  was  "  to  be  put  again  into  motion  " 
to  act  in  concert  with  the  king  of  Prussia ;  and  a  present  supply  for 
the  payment  of  that  army  was  asked,  in  consideration  of  "  the  ex- 
hausted and  ruined  state  of  the  Electorate."  ,£100,000  was  im- 
mediately voted.  The  votes  for  supplies  amounted  to  ten  millions. 
Pitt  rarely  went  to  the  House  of  Commons,  being  laid  up  with  the 
gout ;  but  whether  confined  to  his  chair  or  his  bed,  he  issued  his 
orders  for  the  manning  of  fleets  or  the  movement  of  armies,  in 
every  quarter  of  the  globe.  Some  of  his  plans  were  successful ; 
others  were  failures.  He  had  not  yet  trodden  down  the  system 
under  which  family  connections  and  parliamentary  influences  were 
the  paramount  considerations  in  the  choice  of  generals  and  ad- 
mirals to  command  expeditions.  Early  in  the  Session  Pitt  had  hurled 
his  thunderbolts  against  lord  Loudoun,  who,  he  said,  might  have 
recovered  affairs  in  America  if  he  had  not  loitered  from  the  gih  of 
July  to  the  5th  of  August,  inquiring  whether  or  no  the  French  force 
was  superior.  "  Our  ill  success  has  hurt  my  quiet  and  tainted  my 
health."-  He  had  again  to  bear  a  repetition  of  ineffectual  proceed- 
ings on  the  French  coast,  imputed  by  some  to  his  want  of  knowl- 
edge of  the  defences  of  the  place  to  be  attacked — St.  Maloes.  An 
armament  sailed  on  the  ist  of  June.  The  fleet  was  commanded  by 
lord  Anson  ;  the  troops  by  the  duke  of  Marlborough.  At  St. 
Maloes  a  landing  was  effected  without  opposition.  A  number  of 
small  vessels  were  burnt,  and  then  the  soldiers  re-embarked.  "  The 
French  learned,"  writes  Walpole,  "  that  they  were  not  to  be  con- 
quered by  every  duke  of  Marlborough."  *  The  success,  such  as 
it  was,  was  called  by  Mr.  Fox  "breaking  windows  with  guineas." 
On  the  8th  of  August,  Cherbourg  was  taken  without  opposition ; 
its  forts  and  basin  were  destroyed,  with  its  hundred  and  seventy 
iron  guns.  Its  brass  guns  were  brought  to  the  Tower  of  Lon- 
don. From  Cherbourg,  the  same  expedition  proceeded  to  make 
another  attempt  upon  St.  Maloes.  The  place  was  found  too 
strong  for  assault ;  and  the  English  troops,  who  were  in  a  wretched 
state  of  discipline,  disgraced  themselves  by  their  excesses  as  they 
wandered  about  in  the  district.  A  large  French  force  was  coming 
down  upon  them.  All  was  hurry  to  rejoin  the  ships  in  the  bay  of 
St.  Cas  ;  but  the  rear-guard  of  fifteen  hundred  men  was  cut  off,  and 
a  thousand  were  killed  or  made  prisoners.  There  needed  some 
decided  success  to  counteract  the  influence  of  these  misfortunes. 

*  "  Memoirs  of  George  II.,"  vol  iii.  p.  185. 


4O  HISTORY   OF   ENGLAND. 

The  French  were  dispossessed  of  their  settlements  on  the  African 
coast.  An  expedition  sent  against  Fort  Louis,  on  the  Senegal 
river — a  project  suggested  to  Pitt  by  Thomas  Camming,  a  commer- 
cial Quaker,  who  hoped  that  the  French  might  be  deprived  of  their 
monopoly  of  the  gun  trade  without  shedding  a  drop  of  blood.  He 
went  with  the  expedition,  and  Fort  Louis  was  taken  without  slaugh- 
ter. Goree  surrendered  to  a  stronger  armament,  but  not  without 
many  broadsides  from  our  ships,  which  showed  Pitt's  "  good  and 
worthy  Friend,"  as  the  minister  addressed  him,  that  gentle  warfare 
was  not  a  possible  thing.  There  were  greater  conquests  in  Amer- 
ica. Pitt  had  not  only  publicly  censured  the  earl  of  Loudoun  ;  he 
did  what  was  more  effectual — he  recalled  him.  He  now  chose  his 
commanders,  not  by  seniority,  but  by  their  reputation  for  ability. 
General  Amherst  was  dispatched  to  take  the  command  of  the  troops, 
with  Wolfe  as  his  second  in  seniority,  with  the  rank  of  brigadier- 
general.  Admiral  Boscawen  was  to  command  the  fleet.  There 
were  now  an  admiral  and  a  general  who  would  co-operate.  On 
the  2nd  of  June  a  fleet  of  a  hundred  and  fifty  ships,  bearing  twelve 
thousand  troops,  appeared  off  Louisbourg.  The  soldiers  were  con- 
veyed to  the  shore  in  boats  ;  and  Wolfe  was  the  first  to  jump  into 
the  surf,  and  lead  his  men  to  the  attack  of  the  French  who  were 
drawn  up  to  oppose  their  landing.  The  defences  were  very  strong  ; 
and  it  was  nearly  the  end  of  July  before  Louisbourg  capitulated, 
with  nearly  six  thousand  prisoners  of  war.  Cape  Breton  once  more 
formed  a  part  of  our  dominions.  The  French  fleet  in  the  harbour 
was  utterly  destroyed.  Throughout  England  there  was  universal 
exultation.  This  great  success  was  regarded  as  a  proof  that  the 
nation  was  beginning  to  reap  the  fruit  of  vigorous  councils.  This 
was  the  turning  point  in  Mr.  Pitt's  administration.  There  came 
disasters.  This  boldest  of  war  ministers  had  a  vast  scheme  of 
operations,  each  portion  of  which  had  reference  to  some  ultimate 
object.  He  was  already  looking  to  the  conquest  of  Quebec,  and 
proposed  to  general  Abercrombie  to  reduce  the  French  forts  on 
the  borders  of  Lake  George  and  Lake  Champlain.  An  attack  upon 
Ticonderago,  a  strong  fort,  was  repulsed  by  the  marquis  de  Mont- 
calm,  an  experienced  French  general,  with  a  loss  to  the  British 
regiments  and  the  American  militia  of  two  thousand  killed  and 
wounded.  In  a  previous  skirmish,  lord  Howe,  who  appears  to  have 
been  "  what  every  man  in  arms  should  wish  to  be,"  fell  at  the  head 
of  his  regiment.  The  American  campaign  was  concluded  by  the 
surrender  to  the  British  of  fort  Duquesne,  the  original  cause  of  the 
war.  Its  name  was  changed  to  Pittsburg. 

In  this  year,  whilst  prince  Ferdinand  kept  the  French  in  check, 


FREDERICK'S  THIRD  CAMPAIGN.  41 

Frederick,  on  the  25th  of  August,  fought  the  great  battle  of  Zorn- 
dorf,  near  Frankfort-on-the-Oder,  in  which  he  defeated  the  Rus- 
sians with  a  fearful  slaughter.  To  show  the  short  step  from  the 
sublime  to  the  ridiculous,  Walpole  writes  : — "  Well  !  the  king  of 
Prussia  is  found  again — where  do  you  think  ?  only  in  Poland,  up 
to  the  chin  in  Russians.  Was  ever  such  a  man  !  He  was  riding 
home  from  Olmutz  ;  they  ran  and  told  him  of  an  army  of  Musco- 
vites, as  you  would  of  a  covey  of  partridges  ;  he  galloped  thither 
and  shot  them."  *  The  smart  letter-writer  then  speaks  of  the  ex- 
treme popularity  in  England  of  the  great  Fritz  :  "  The  lowest  of 
the  people  are  perfectly  acquainted  with  him  ;  as  I  was  walking  by 
the  river  the  other  night,  a  bargeman  asked  me  for  something  to 
drink  the  king  of  Prussia's  health."  A  large  portion  of  the  English 
public,; — a  portion  somewhat  above  the  bargemen  on  the  Thames 
and  the  alehouse  keepers  who  set  up  the  head  of  "  the  Protestant 
hero"  as  their  sign — looked  with  intense  interest  upon  the  man 
who  had  fought  six  pitched  battles  in  one  year,  and,  undepressed 
by  failure  as  he  was  calm  under  success,  was  still  fighting  for  his 
little  kingdom  against  a  host  of  enemies.  They  looked  with  won- 
der upon  the  versatility  and  unconquerable  gaiety  of  this  most  ex- 
traordinary of  kings,  who  gave  Europe  a  poem  when  he  had  no 
materials  for  a  gazette.  His  poems,  translated  well  or  indifferently, 
unequal  as  their  originals,  found  their  way  into  popular  Miscel- 
lanies. When  he,  in  his  Epistle  to  Voltaire,  talked  of  "  the  insipid 
farce  of  tedious  state  "  —  "  the  fickle  multitude's  caress  " — "  the 
thorny  pomp  of  scepter'd  care  " — critics  might  believe  that  there 
was  the  affectation  of  philosophy  in  all  this  ;  but  the  general  sym- 
pathy would  acknowledge  that  Frederick  did  not  claim  more  for 
himself  than  he  was  entitled  to,  when  he  said  that  he  must  be, — 

"  to  face  the  tempest's  rage, 
In  thought,  in  life,  and  death,  a  King."  t 

He  had  need  of  fortitude.  He  was  triumphant  over  the  Russians 
in  August.  In  October  he  was  surprised  by  the  Austrians  in  his 
camp,  in  a  combined  operation  of  general  Daun  and  general  Lau- 
dohn.  As  the  church  clock  of  Hochkirchen  struck  five,  on  a  cold 
and  foggy  morning  of  October,  Frederick  was  awakened  with  the 
news  that  his  batteries  were  stormed  ;  and  that  a  hostile  army  was 
in  the  centre  of  his  camp.  His  presence  of  mind  saved  his  troops 
from  complete  destruction  ;  but  after  fighting  five  hours  he  was 
obliged  to  abandon  his  tents,  his  baggage,  and  his  artillery.  He 
halted  about  half  a  league  from  the''  field  of  battle  ;  but  he  had 

*  Letter  to  Mann,  Sept.  9. 

t  This  translation  is  in  the  "  Annual  Register,"  for  1758. 


4-2  HISTORY   OF    ENGLAND. 

brought  off  his  men  in  such  good  order  that  the  Austrians  did  not 
dare  again  to  attack  him.  The  great  loss  on  that  day  was  marshal 
Keith. 

The  Parliament  met  on  the  23rd  of  November.  "It  is  all  har- 
mony," says  Walpole,  "and  thinks  of  nothing  but  giving  away 
twelve  more  millions."  The  lavishness  of  Pitt  has  been  objected 
against  him  ;  but  it  must  be  borne  in  mind  that  there  can  be  no 
greater  waste  than  results  from  the  false  economy  of  what  Wel- 
lington called  "  a  little  war."  The  official  mode  of  looking  at  a 
war-expenditure  is  thus  described,  with  reference  to  the  period 
when  Pitt  entered  upon  his  ministerial  career.  "  The  heavy  debt 
of  the  nation  served  as  an  excuse  to  those  who  understood  nothing 
but  little  temporary  expedients  to  preach  up  our  impossibility  of 
making  an  effectual  stand.  They  were  willing  to  trust  that  France 
would  be  so  good  as  to  ruin  us  by  inches."  *  But  Pitt  took  other 
means  to  rescue  the  nation  from  its  ignoble  lethargy  and  its  slow 
decay,  than  the  common  lavishness  even  of  weak  ministers.  He 
infused  his  own  energetic  spirit  into  every  one  whom  he  entrusted 
with  the  execution  of  his  plans.  In  choosing  men  for  military 
command,  he  passed  over  the  ancient  formalists  "  who  had  grown 
old  on  a  very  small  portion  of  experience."  He  wanted  men  who 
would  not  shrink  from  difficulties.  On  the  22nd  of  September, 
1758,  a  letter  was  addressed  to  the  minister  by  the  youthful  gen- 
eral who  had  first  leapt  into  the  surf  at  Louisbourg.  Wolfe  had 
returned  home  in  ill  health.  He  was  then  in  his  thirty-third  year. 
He  informed  Mr.  Pitt  that  he  had  no  objection  to  serve  in  Amer- 
ica, and  particularly  in  the  river  St.  Lawrence,  if  any  operations 
were  to  be  carried  on  there.  He  asked  only  a  little  time  to  re- 
cover the  injury  done  to  his  constitution,  that  he  might  be  "  the 
better  able  to  go  through  the  business  of  the  next  summer."  f 
Pitt  at  once  promoted  Wolfe  to  the  rank  of  major-general,  and 
gave  him  the  command  of  the  projected  expedition  to  Quebec. 
Lord  Mahon  has  related,  upon  private  authority,  a  most  interest- 
ing anecdote  of  circumstances  attending  the  last  interview  between 
the  minister  and  the  young  soldier  to  whom  he  had  entrusted  so 
heavy  a  responsibility.  Pitt  invited  Wolfe  to  dinner,  lord  Temple 
being  the  only  other  guest.  "  As  the  evening  advanced,  Wolfe- 
heated,  perhaps,  by  his  own  aspiring  thoughts,  and  the  unwonted 
society  of  statesmen — broke  forth  into  a  strain  of  gasconade  and 
bravado.  He  drew  his  sword,  he  rapped  the  table  with  it,  he  flour- 
ished it  round  the  room,  he  talked  of  the  mighty  things  which  that 

*  Walpole — "  Memoirs  of  George  II.,"  vol.  iii.  p.  173. 
t  "  Chatham  Correspondence,"  vol.  i.  p.  370. 


THE   BATTLE   OF   MINDEN.  43 

sword  was  to  achieve.  The  two  ministers  sat  aghast  at  an  exhibi- 
tion so  unusual  from  any  man  of  real  sense  and  real  spirit."  * 
Was  there  not  some  other  exciting  cause  than  Wolfe's  own  aspiring 
thoughts  ? — some  inspiration  beyond  the  ordinary  sober  talk  in  the 
society  of  statesmen  ?  It  is  well  known  that  Pitt  would  harangue 
in  other  places  than  in  parliament.  He  harangued  George  II. 
He  harangued  every  one  to  whom  he  gave  important  instructions. 
It  has  been  said  that  no  officer  went  into  his  presence  to  receive 
his  commands  without  coming  out  a  bolder  man.  According  to  a 
joke  at  the  court  of  Louis  XV.,  he  so  frightened  Bussy,  the  French 
envoy,  by  his  declamation,  that  the  terrified  negotiator  jumped  out 
of  the  window.  The  bravado  of  Wolfe  might  be  the  almost  un- 
conscious tribute  of  an  impulsive  nature  to  the  warlike  eloquence 
of  Pitt. 

The  year  1759  ^s  one  °f  the  most  memorable  years  in  the  annals 
of  Britain.  On  the  colours  of  our  I2th,  2oth,  23rd,  25th,  37th,  and 
5ist  regiments  are  inscribed  the  name  of  "  Minden."  At  the  great 
battle  of  Minden,  on  the  ist  of  August,  prince  Ferdinand  defeated 
the  French  generals  the  duke  de  Broglie,  and  the  mareschal  de 
Contades,  who  commanded  a  force  very  superior  to  that  of  the 
Hanoverians  and  English.  In  the  preceding  April,  Ferdinand  had 
been  compelled  to  retreat  before  these  generals,  after  having  been 
defeated  at  Bergen.  The  electorate  of  Hanover  seemed  again 
ready  to  be  a  prey  to  the  rapacity  of  the  French,  when  another  like 
the  duke  de  Richelieu  might  build  a  palace  out  of  its  spoils.  But 
the  skilful  tactics  of  Ferdinand  stood  between  the  French  and 
their  expected  conquest.  Cassel,  Munster,  and  Minden  were  in 
their  possession.  A  small  detachment  of  the  Hanoverians  and 
English  appeared  before  Minden,  exposed,  as  it  appeared  to  the 
French  officers,  to  inevitable  destruction.  De  Broglie  marched  out 
from  his  strong  position  to  surround  them  ;  when  the  whole  allied 
army  was  seen,  drawn  up  in  order  of  battle.  De  Contades  then 
joined  him  ;  and  the  two,  with  their  cavalry,  made  repeated  attacks 
upori  the  solid  English  and  Hanoverian  infantry.  Again  and  again 
they  were  driven  back ;  and  at  length  the  French  generals  com- 
manded a  retreat.  The  cavalry,  under  lord  George  Sackville,  hari 
not  been  engaged.  Ferdinand  sent  him  orders  to  charge  the 
French  before  they  could  rally.  Sackville  would  not  understand 
the  messages  brought  to  him  by  three  aides-de-camp,  two  of  whom 
were  English.  The  opportunity  was  lost  for  the  entire  rout  of  the 
enemy ;  although  the  victory  was  complete,  as  far  as  it  went.  That 
evening,  the  Englishman  whom  his  countrymen  were  to  brand  as  a 

*  "  History,"  vol.  iv.  p.  228. 


44  HISTORY   OF    ENGLAND. 

coward,  appeared  at  Ferdinand's  table.  Surprise  was  expressed 
at  the  marvellous  audacity.  In  the  General  Orders  issued  the 
next  morning,  in  which  the  troops  and  some  distinguished  officers 
received  the  thanks  of  their  commander,  the  name  of  Sackville  was 
not  mentioned  ;  and  the  marquis  of  Granby,  the  second  in  com- 
mand, was  referred  to  as  one  who,  if  he  had  been  at  the  head  of 
the  cavalry,  would  have  made  the  decision  of  that  day  more  com- 
plete and  brilliant.  Lord  George  begged  to  return  home  and  to 
resign  his  command.  He  came  to  England  ;  was  deprived  of  all 
his  offices  ;  and  being  tried  by  court-martial  in  the  following  year, 
was  found  guilty  of  disobeying  prince  Ferdinand's  orders,  and  was 
declared  unfit  to  serve  in  any  military  capacity.  The  haughty  and 
ambitious  man,  in  despite  of  public  contempt,  made  his  way  to  civil 
employment  in  the  next  reign.  But  in  spite  of  Sackville,  Minden 
was  a  British  triumph.  Other  triumphs  succeeded.  The  French 
were  preparing  for  our  invasion.  Pitt  sent  admiral  Rodney  to 
destroy  their  gunboats  in  the  port  of  Havre,  which  service  was 
effectually  accomplished.  Brest  was  blockaded.  Admiral  Bos- 
cawen  on  the  I7th  of  August  defeated  a  French  fleet  in  the  bay  of 
Lagos  on  its  way  from  Toulon  to  assist  in  the  operations  in  the 
Channel.  Guadaloupe  had  capitulated  to  an  English  armament  in 
May  that  was  employed  in  attacks  upon  the  French  West  India 
Islands. 

The  French  colony  of  Canada,  in  1759,  contained  forty  thousand 
souls.  Lower  Canada,  or  Canada  East,  was  occupied  almost  ex- 
clusively by  the  French  settlers,  who  had  been  established  there 
since  1608,  on  the  spot  now  occupied  by  the  city  of  Quebec.  The 
Red  Indians  ranging  over  the  vast  surface  of  unoccupied  country 
were,  for  the  most  part,  in  friendship  with  the  French,  and  assisted 
them,  as  we  have  seen,  in  their  inroads  upon  the  British  North 
American  colonists.  Two  millions  of  civilized  men,  whether  of 
French  or  of  British  descent,  incorporated  into  a  great  people,  now 
inhabit  that  fine  country  of  Canada;  and,  through  the  sure  effect 
of  the  wise  measures  of  the  imperial  government,  however  tardy, 
are  amongst  the  most  attached  of  British  colonists,  sending  their 
surplus  population  to  add  to  the  home  defence  of  the  State  which 
they  honour.  The  marquis  de  Montcalm,  in  1759,  commanded 
the  French  troops  in  Canada — a  brave  and  honourable  man,  un- 
tainted with  the  profligacy  of  the  court  of  Louis  XV.  The  plans 
of  Mr.  Pitt  for  the  campaign  in  America  were  of  a  wide  but  com- 
prehensive character.  There  were  three  armaments.  Two  of 
these  had  a  field  of  operations  calculated  to  attain  partial  advantages 
in  themselves,  but  intended  to  combine  in  one  great  undertaking.  In 


WOLFE    IN    THE    ST.    LAWRENCE.  45 

the  middle  of  July,  a  body  of  the  American  militia,  and  of  Indians 
in  amity  with  them,  commenced  the  siege  of  Niagara,  a  strong  fort 
on  that  river,  near  the  Falls.  Six  hundred  men  defended  the 
place.  A  large  force,  chiefly  of  Indians,  approached  to  the  relief 
of  the  garrison ;  and  during  the  battle  which  ensued,  the  Indian 
war-whoop  was  heard  above  the  cataract's  roar, — a  singular  con- 
trast to  many  European  battles  in  which  the  thunder-clap  has 
mingled  with  the  boom  of  the  gun.  The  garrison  capitulated ;  and 
the  fall  of  Niagara  was  numbered  amongst  the  triumphs  of  that 
year.  General  Amherst  had  succeeded  to  the  command  held  by 
general  Abercrombie,  who  had  failed,  not  without  incurring  blame, 
in  his  attack  upon  the  fortress  of  Ticonderoga  in  1758.  In  July, 
Amherst  reduced  this  stronghold,  the  French  retreating  to  another 
fort  on  Lake  Champlain,  called  Crown  Point.  This  place  was 
also  secured.  But  at  the  upper  end  of  the  lake  the  French  had 
taken  up  a  strong  position.  The  English  general  had  to  build 
boats  before  he  could  attempt  to  dislodge  them.  He  had  been 
instructed,  after  securing  the  navigation  on  Lake  Champlain,  to 
march  along  the  river  Richelieu,  and  combine  his  operations  with 
those  of  Wolfe  on  the  St.  Lawrence.  Amherst  embarked  on  Lake 
Champlain.  He  was  driven  back  by  storms ;  and  then  came  the 
winter.  Wolfe,  with  eight  thousand  men,  had  sailed  in  a  fleet 
commanded  by  admiral  Saunders  ;  and  by  the  aid  of  some  charts 
of  the  river  which  had  been  taken  on  board  a  French  vessel,  the 
difficult  passage  of  the  St.  Lawrence  was  accomplished.  On  the 
27th  of  July,  the  small  British  army  landed  on  the  Isle  of  Orleans, 
opposite  Quebec,  where  they  found  abundance  to  recruit  them 
after  their  long  voyage. 

The  highest  hopes  of  the  English  people  attended  the  pro- 
gress of  these  operations  in  North  America.  The  force  sent  out 
was  large.  There  was  confidence  in  the  skill  and  bravery  of  the 
commanders.  On  the  I4th  of  October  there  arrived  in  London  a 
letter  addressed  by  Wolfe  to  the  earl  of  Holderness,  one  of  the 
Secretaries  of  State,  which  appeared  to  annihilate  every  hope  ;  as 
did  a  letter  addressed  to  Mr.  Pitt.  On  the  i6th  Walpole  writes  : 
"Two  days  ago  came  letters  from  Wolfe,  despairing,  as  much 
as  heroes  can  despair."  The  letter  to  Holderness,  dated  on  the 
9th  of  September,  "  On  board  the  Sutherland,  at  anchor  off  Cape 
Rouge,"  is  singularly  interesting;  written  with  great  care,  and 
with  the  solemnity  of  a  brave  man  who  feels  that  he  is  likely  to 
fail  in  doing  the  State  service.  Quebec,  he  says,  he  could  have 
taken,  if  Montcalm  had  shut  himself  up  in  the  town ;  "  but  he  has 
a  numerous  body  of  armed  men,  and  the  strongest  country,  per- 


46  HISTORY   OF    ENGLAND. 

haps,  in  the  world  to  rest  the  defence  of  the  town  and  colony 
upon."  He  had  attacked  their  entrenchments  on  the  31  st  of 
July;  but  accidents  prevented  the  success  of  the  attempt;  and  the 
post  had  been  so  strengthened  that  another  attempt  would  be  too 
hazardous.  The  English  fleet  blocks  up  the  river,  but  can  give  no 
assistance  in  an  attack  upon  the  Canadian  army.  The  heat  of 
the  weather,  and  great  fatigue,  had  thrown  him  into  a  fever,  and 
he  had  begged  the  generals  to  consider  what  was  best  to  be  done. 
They  recommended  that  a  considerable  corps  should  be  conveyed 
into  the  upper  river,  to  draw  the  enemy  from  their  inaccessible 
situation,  and  bring  them  to  an  action.  "  I  agreed,"  he  says,  "  to 
the  proposal ;  and  we  are  now  here  with  about  three  thousand  six 
hundred  men,  waiting  an  opportunity  to  attack  them,  when  and 
wherever  they  can  best  be  got  at."  The  fleet  of  transports  had 
carried  the  army,  reduced  to  this  small  number,  up  the  St.  Law- 
rence, several  miles  above  Quebec,  where  they  disembarked.  "  So 
far  recovered  as  to  do  business,"  he  waited  "an  opportunity  to 
attack."  Genius  makes  its  own  opportunities.  The  Heights  of 
Abraham  form  a  continuation  of  the  steep  ridge  of  rocks  on  which 
Quebec  is  built — an  almost  natural  barrier  against  any  assaults 
from  troops  landing  near  the  city.  It  was  one  o'clock  in  the  morn- 
ing of  the  I3th  of  September  when  the  little  band  were  crowded 
into  boats,  to  float  down  the  broad  river  with  the  flowing  tide.  In 
darkness  and  in  silence  they  embarked.  Wolfe,  who  had  the 
poetical  element  in  his  composition,  repeated  in  a  low  voice  to  his 
brother  officers  as  they  sat  in  the  boat  the  famous  poem  which  he 
had  retained  in  his  memory — Gray's  "  Elegy  in  a  Country  Church- 
yard." *  They  reached  a  little  inlet  about  two  miles  above  Que- 
bec, now  called  "  Wolfe's  Cove."  They  landed  at  the  foot  of  a 
cliff,  with  one  narrow  path  which  led  up  to  a  wide  table-land.  The 
•nen  struggled  up  with  the  aid  of  boughs  and  stumps  of  trees,  or 
clinging  to  projections  in  the  rock.  Foremost  amongst  those  who 
scaled  the  cliff  was  one  of  the  new  Highland  regiments.  A  French 
picquet  fired  and  fled.  The  height  was  gained.  The  troops 
formed  in  line ;  and  anxiously  waited  for  another  detachment 
which  the  boats  had  gone  back  to  bring.  When  the  day  broke  a 
compact  army  stood,  as  if  brought  thither  by  magic,  on  the  high- 
ground  at  the  back  of  Quebec.  Montcalm  would  not  believe  the 
intelligence.  He  saw  with  his  own  eyes;  and  then  led  his  troops 

*  Strange  as  this  may  seem  in  such  a  moment  of  anxiety,  it  was  the- relief  from  the 
weight  of  an  overwhelming  thought  ;  such  as  Shakspere  has  exhibited  when  lie  makes 
Cinna  and  Casca  discuss  where  the  coming  day  was  to  break,  in  the  interval  that  pre- 
ceded the  resolve  that  Caesar  should  die. 


DEATH  OF  WOLFE.  —  Vol.  vi.  46. 


DEATH    OF   WOLFE.  47 

forth  from  their   entrenchments.     "  If  I  must  fight,  I  will  crush 
them,"  he  said  ;  and  prepared  for  battle. 

Wolfe  had  disposed  his  little  force  with  admirable  judgment. 
Montcalm  was  advancing  with  French  and  Canadian  regiments  in- 
termingled, whilst  his  Indian  allies  were  detached  to  outflank  the 
British  on  their  left.  This  left  wing  was  commanded  by  brigadier- 
general  Townshend,  whilst  Wolfe  was  with  the  right  wing,  where 
the  hottest  work  was  expected.  He  had  ordered  his  men  not  to 
fire  till  the  enemy  came  within  forty  yards.  Montcalm's  troops 
had  fired  as  they  advanced,  and  Wolfe  had  received  a  shot  in  his 
wrist.  He  bound  the  wound  with  his  handkerchief.  The  volley 
of  the  British  stopped  the  advance.  Wolfe  headed  his  grenadiers 
to  the  charge,  when  another  shot  struck  him  in  a  vital  part.  Still 
he  issued  his  orders  and  pressed  on.  A  third  ball  hit  him  in  the 
breast.  He  fell,  and  was  carried  to  the  rear.  His  eyes  were 
growing  dim  as  he  looked  upon  the  battle.  He  sank  on  the 
ground,  when  an  officer  near  him  exclaimed  "  They  run."  The 
dying  man  raised  himself  on  his  elbow,  and  asked  "  Who  run  ?  " 
"  The  enemy,  the  enemy."  "  I  am  satisfied,"  said  Wolfe.  The 
second  in  command,  general  Monkton,  had  also  fallen.  General 
Townshend  completed  the  victory.  The  brave  Montcalm  was 
mortally  wounded,  and  being  carried  into  the  city  died  the  next 
day.  Quebec  capitulated  on  the  i8th  of  September.*  The  hearts 
of  the  people  were  probably  never  more  stirred  than  by  Wolfe's 
gloomy  dispatch  of  the  pth  of  September,  followed  by  the  intel- 
ligence of  the  capture  of  Quebec,  and  of  the  death  of  Wolfe,  which 
arrived  three  days  later.  "  They  despaired,  they  triumphed,  and 
they  wept."  f  The  popular  admiration  of  Wolfe  was  not  a  pass- 
ing sentiment.  A  quarter  of  a  century  atterwards,  when  Cowper 
published  his  "  Task,  "  it  was 

"  praise  enough 

To  fill  the  ambition  of  a  private  man, 
That  Chatham's  language  was  his  mother  tongue, 
And  Wolfe's  great  name  compatriot  with  his  own. 

Parliament  was  opened  by  commission  on  the  I3th  of  Novem- 
ber. Peace  was  talked  of ;  but  it  was  urged  that  such  supplies 
should  be  given,  as  would  enable  his  majesty  "  to  sustain  and  press, 
with  effect,  all  our  extensive  operations  against  the  enemy."  In 
the  course  of  the  Session  fifteen  millions  and  a  half  was  voted  for 
Supplies — an  enormous  sum  by  comparison  with  the  estimates  of 
previous  years  of  war.  Pitt  on  the  aoth  moved  that  a  public  mon- 

*  An  obelisk,  erected  in  the  gardens  attached  to  the  Government  House  bears  on  on« 
side  the  name  of  "  Wolfe,"  on  the  other  that  of  "  Montcalm." 
t  Walpole — "  Memoirs,"  vol.  iii.  p.  219. 


48  HISTORY   OF   ENGLAND. 

ument  should  be  erected  to  the  memory  of  general  Wolfe.  He 
moved  also  the  thanks  of  the  House  to  the  generals  and  admirals, 
"whose  merit,"  he  said,  "had  equalled  those  who  have  beaten 
Armadas — '  May  I  anticipate  ?  '  cried  he,  '  those  who  will  beat 
Armadas.'  "  *  At  the  hour  at  which  Pitt  used  this  remarkable  ex- 
pression, a  naval  battle  was  being  fought,  which  made  his  antici- 
pation look  like  some  mysterious  sympathy  which  outran  the  ordi- 
nary means  of  intelligence — the  "  shadows  before  "  which  a  san- 
guine mind  sees  in  "coming  events."  Admiral  Hawke  was  driven 
by  the  equinoctial  gales  from  his  blockade  of  Brest.  Conflans,  the 
French  admiral,  came  out  with  twenty-one  ships  of  the  line  and 
four  frigates.  Admiral  Duff  was  off  Ouiberon  Bay  with  his  squad- 
ron ;  and  Conflans  hoped  to  attack  him  before  Hawke  could  come 
to  the  rescue.  But  Hawke  did  return ;  and  then  Conflans  hurried 
to  the  mouth  of  the  Vilaine — fancying  himself  secure  amidst  the 
rocks  and  shoals  on  that  shore  to  which  the  Britons  sailed  to  the 
aid  of  the  Veneti.  The  danger  of  a  sea-fight  in  such  a  perilous 
navigation  had  no  terrors  for  Hawke.  The  pilot  pointed  out  the 
danger.  "  Lay  me  alongside  the  French  admiral,"  was  Hawke's 
reply  to  the  pilot's  remonstrance.  "  You  have  done  your  duty, 
but  now  obey  my  orders."  The  fight  went  on  till  night  whilst  a 
tempest  was  raging.  Signal  guns  of  vessels  in  distress  were  heard 
on  every  side.  When  the  morning  came,  two  British  ships  were 
found  to  be  stranded,  but  their  crews  were  saved.  Four  of  the 
French  fleet  had  been  sunk,  among  which  was  the  admiral's  ship. 
Two  had  struck.  The  rest  had  fled  up  the  Vilaine.  This  final 
victory  put  an  end  to  all  those  apprehensions  of  a  descent  upon 
England,  which  prevailed  before  Pitt  had  infused  his  spirit  into 
commanders  by  land  and  sea.  The  French  admiral,  Thurot,  was  to 
have  co-operated  with  Conflans  in  an  attempt  at  invasion.  He 
landed  in  the  north  of  Ireland ;  attacked  Carrickfergus,  which  was 
bravely  defended  by  seventy-two  men  ;  and  then  went  again  to  se-a, 
having  plundered  the  town,  and  carried  off  the  mayor  and  three 
other  inhabitants  as  his  prisoners. 

It  was  the  determination  to  believe  nothing  impossible  to  a 
strong  will,  and  to  think  no  loss  irretrievable,  which  sustained 
Frederick  of  Prussia  through  the  reverses  of  1759 — ^he  most  dis- 
astrous of  all  his  campaigns.  The  defeat  by  the  Russians  at 
Kunersdorf  would  have  annihilated  a  less  resolute  man.  But  he 
rallied  ;  and  he  fought  through  another  year  of  chequered  fortune, 
during  which  his  own  territories  suffered  the  extremities  of  misery, 
to  vin  the  two  victories  of  Legnitz  and  of  Torgau. 

*  Walpole — "  Memoirs,"    p.  230. 


DEATH  OF  GEORGE  THE  SECOND.  49 

The  year  1760  was  not  a  year  of  excitement  to  the  English 
people.  The  war  went  on  ;  but  even  the  defence  of  the  conquests 
of  1 759  required  no  great  exertions.  Quebec  was  besieged ;  but 
the  besiegers  were  compelled  to  retire,  when  an  English  fleet 
appeared  in  the  St.  Lawrence.  There  was  little  domestic  agita- 
tion, except  a  ministerial  difference  with  the  court,  which  some- 
what detracts  from  the  dignity  of  Pitt,  in  his  exhibition  of  contempt 
for  that  influence  which  prevented  his  brother-in-law,  earl  Temple, 
from  obtaining  the  Garter.  Parliament  had  little  more  to  do  than 
vote  supplies.  "  Success,"  said  Pitt,  "  had  produced  unanimity, 
not  unanimity  success."  A  sudden  event  came,  destined  in  a  short 
time  to  change  the  whole  aspect  of  affairs — to  involve  England 
once  again  in  political  contest  more  to  be  dreaded  than  the  ordi- 
nary course  of  party  warfare — more  to  be  dreaded,  because  other 
leaders  appeared  than  those  of  Parliament,  and  the  representatives 
of  th'e  people  were  not  on  the  popular  side.  The  reign  of  George 
II.  came  suddenly  to  a  close  on  the  25th  of  October.  The  king 
had  risen  at  his  usual  hour  of  six ;  had  taken  his  cup  of  chocolate  ; 
and  had  been  left  alone  by  his  attendants.  A  noise  as  of  a  heavy 
fall  was  heard ;  then  a  groan.  The  old  man  lay  on  the  ground, 
and  never  spoke  more.  The  right  ventricle  of  his  heart  had  burst. 
VOL.  VI.— 4 


50  HISTORY   OF   ENGLAND. 


CHAPTER   III. 

Accession  of  George  III. — His  education  and  character.— Lord  Bute. — The  king's  first 
speech. — Policy  of  the  new  reign. — Independence  of  the  Judges. — The  new  Parlia- 
ment.— The  king's  marriage. — Coronation. — Negotiations  for  peace. — Warlike  opera- 
tions.— Affairs  of  the  Continent. — Frederick  of  Prussia. — Negotiations  broken  off. — 
The  Family  Compact. — Resignation  of  Mr.  Pitt. — His  pension. — Debates  in  Parlia- 
ment— War  declared  against  Spain. — Conquest  of  the  Havannah,  and  other  successes. 
— Preliminaries  of  peace  signed. — The  Peace  of  Paris. — Conclusion  of  the  Seven 
Years'  War. — The  cost  of  the  war,  and  its  uses. 

IT  is  related  that  on  the  morning  of  the  25th  of  October,  George, 
prince  of  Wales,  taking  an  early  ride  in  the  neighbourhood  of 
Kew,  where  he  was  residing,  a  messenger  came  to  him,  bearing 
a  note  from  a  German  valet-de-chambre  who  was  about  the  per- 
son of  George  II.,  which  note  bore  a  private  mark,  as  previously 
agreed,  that  declared  the  king  was  dead.  The  prince,  suddenly  be- 
come George  III.,  showed  no  surprise  or  emotion;  dropped  no 
word  to  indicate  what  had  happened ;  but,  saying  his  horse  was 
lame,  turned  back  to  Kew  ;  and,  dismounting,  thus  addressed  his 
groom : — "  I  have  said  this  horse  is  lame  ;  I  forbid  you  to  say  to 
the  contrary."  This  is  Walpole's  relation,  and  this  his  comment: 
— "  The  first  moment  of  the  new  reign  afforded  a  symptom  of  the 
prince's  character  ;  of  that  cool  dissimulation  in  which  he  had  been 
so  well  initiated  by  his  mother,  and  which  comprehended  almost 
the  whole  of  what  she  had  taught  him.*  We  place  this  gossip  of 
the  servants'  hall  at  the  commencement  of  our  narrative.  It  is  • 
quoted  by  lord  John  Russell  as  a  trifling  incident  which  showed 
the  power  which  the  young  king  had  acquired  over  his  countenance 
and  manner.f  It  is  referred  to  by  Mr.  Massey,  to  show  that 
George  III.  "was  not  always  scrupulous  on  the  point  of  veracity."}: 
Our  readers  will  form  their  own  opinion  of  this  symptom  of  the 
royal  character.  Princes,  as  well  as  others  of  the  higher  orders  of 
society,  have  been  immemorially  trained  not  to  exhibit  emotion ; 
and  the  artifice  by  which  the  pupil  of  an  adroit  mother  desired  to 
conceal  his  irregular  knowledge  of  a  great  fact  may  be  paltry 

*  "  Memoirs  of  the  Reign  of  King  George  III.     Now  first  published  from  the  original 
MSS.    Edited  by  Sir  Denis  Le  Marchant,  Bart."     1845.     Vol.  i.  p.  6. 
t  "  Bedford  Correspondence." 
t  "  History  of  England  during  the  reign  of  George  III."  vol.  i.  p.  S          » 


GEORGE  III.  —  Vol.  vi.  50. 


ACCESSION   OF  GEORGE   III.  51 

enough,  but  yet  not  a  manifestation  of  habitual  unveracity.  Lord 
Waldegrave,  who  had  unusual  opportunities  for  studying  the  char- 
acter of  the  prince,  assigns  to  him,  in  his  twenty-first  year,  qualities 
which  may  certainly  be  traced  in  his  maturer  life  :  "  His  parts, 
though  not  excellent,  will  be  found  very  tolerable,  if  ever  they  are 

properly  exercised He  is  strictly  honest,  but  wants  that 

frank  and  open  behaviour  which  makes  honesty  appear  amiable. 
.  .  .  His  religion  is  free  from  hypocrisy,  but  is  not  of  the  most 

charitable  sort He  has  spirit,  but  not  of  the  active  kind ; 

and  does  not  want  resolution,  but  it  is  mixed  with  too  much  or> 
stinacy  ....  He  has  great  command  of  his  passions,  and  will 
seldom  do  wrong,  except  when  he  mistakes  wrong  for  right ;  but  as 
often  as  this  shall  happen,  it  will  be  difficult  to  undeceive  him,  be- 
cause he  is  unusually  indolent,  and  has  strong  prejudices 

Whenever  he  is  displeased  his  anger  does  not  break  out  with  heat 
and  violence,  but  he  becomes  sullen  and  silent,  and  returns  to  his 
closet ;  not  to  compose  his  mind  by  study  or  contemplation,  but 
merely  to  indulge  the  melancholy  enjoyment  of  his  own  ill-humour. 
Even  when  the  fit  is  ended,  unfavourable  symptoms  very  frequently 
return,  which  indicate  that  on  certain  occasions  his  royal  high- 
ness has  too  correct  a  memory.  .  .  .  Though  I  have  mentioned 
his  good  and  bad  qualities,  without  flattery,  and  without  aggrava- 
tion, allowances  should  still  be  made,  on  account  of  his  youth,  and 
his  bad  education."  *  With  regard  to  the  education  of  the  prince 
his  mother  told  Doddington  that  it  "  had  given  her  much  pain.  His 
book-learning  she  was  no  judge  of,  though  she  supposed  it  small  or 
useless  ;  but  she  hoped  he  might  have  been  instructed  in  the  gen- 
eral understandings  of  things."  Speaking  of  Mr.  Stone,  the  sub- 
governor,  the  princess-dowager  said,  "  she  once  desired  him  to 
inform  the  prince  about  the  constitution ;  but  he  declined  it,  to 
avoid  giving  jealousy  to  the  bishop  of  Norwich."  f  The  bishop 
had  the  title  of  Preceptor.  These  instructors,  according  to  lord 
Waldegrave,  though  men  of  sense,  men  of  learning,  and  worthy 
good  men,  "  had  but  little  weight  and  influence.  The  mother  and 
the  nursery  always  prevailed."  The  partizans  of  lord  Bute.  Wai- 
pole  says,  "  affected  to  celebrate  the  care  he  had  taken  of  the  king's 
education  ....  His  majesty  had  learned  nothing  but  what  a  man 
who  knew  nothing  could  teach  him."  J  It  has  been,  we  think, 
hastily  assumed,  that  this  king,  in  his  maturer  life,  added  nothing 
to  his  scanty  stores  of  knowledge. 

Burke  has  described,  in  emphatic  words,  the  state  of  the  coun- 

*  "  Memoirs,"  p.  8.  t  "  Diary,"  August  17,  755. 

t  "Memoirs  of  George  III."  vol.  i.  p.  55. 


52  HISTORY  OF   ENGLAND. 

try  at  the  period  of  the  death  of  George  II.  "He  carried  the 
glory,  the  power,  the  commerce  of  England  to  a  height  unknown 
even  to  this  renowned  nation  in  the  times  of  its  greatest  prosperity ; 
and  he  left  his  succession  resting  on  the  true  and  only  true  founda- 
tions of  all  national  and  all  regal  greatness ;  affection  at  home, 
reputation  abroad,  trust  in  allies,  terror  in  rival  nations."  *  These 
triumphs  of  the  last  four  years  of  George  II.'s  reign  are  thus  point- 
ed out,  to  contrast  with  the  change  that  had  taken  place  in  ten 
years  after  the  accession  of  George  III.  Junius,  in  the  first  of  his 
celebrated  Letters,  holding  that  "  to  be  acquainted  with  the  merit 
of  a  ministry  we  need  only  observe  the  condition  of  the  people," 
proceeds  to  say  that,  if  "  we  see  an  universal  spirit  of  distrust  and 
dissatisfaction,  a  rapid  decay  of  trade,  dissensions  in  all  parts  of 
the  empire,  and  a  total  loss  of  respect  in  the  eyes  of  foreign  powers, 
we  may  pronounce,  without  hesitation,  that  the  government  of  the 
country  is  weak,  distracted,  and  corrupt."  f  Making  every  abate- 
ment for  the  party  griefs  of  Burke,  and  the  virulent  hostility  of  Junius, 
we  cannot  doubt  that  during  the  first  decade  of  the  reign  of  George 
III.  the  times  were  "  out  of  joint ;  "  that  a  great  change  in  the  rela- 
tions of  the  Crown  to  the  Aristocracy  had  been  effected ;  that  a 
change  of  equal  importance  in  the  exercise  of  the  power  of  the  Sov- 
ereign, as  distinguished  from  the  power  of  a  Ministry,  had  also  been 
partially  accomplished  ;  and  that  the  popular  element  in  the  House  of 
Commons  had  been  greatly  diluted  by  the  preponderance  of  the 
courtly  element.  .Without  entering  minutely  into  the  vast  details 
which  time  has  accumulated  for  the  history  of  this  period,  we  shall 
endeavour  to  present  an  impartial  view  of  the  events  which  indicate 
the  policy  systematically  acted  upon  from  the  day  of  George  I  II.'s 
accession — not  passionately  or  inconsistently,  but  with  a  calm  de- 
termination which  showed  that  if  Mr.  Stone  had  neglected  to  teach 
the  prince  of  Wales  something  about  the  Constitution,  lord  Bute 
had  laboured  to  supply  the  deficiency.  That  policy,  as  set  forth 
by  Doddington,  was  "  to  recover  monarchy  from  the  inveterate 
usurpation  of  oligarchy  ;  "  and,  further,  to  get  rid  of  the  necessary 
result  of  that  domination,  which  was  expressed  in  the  lamenta- 
tion of  George  II.  to  his  Chancellor,  "  Ministers  are  the  king  in 
this  country."  These  conceptions  could  not  be  realised  without 
difficulty  and  danger.  Perhaps  the  greatest  danger  was  in  that 
partial  success  which  made  the  House  of  Commons  more  odious  to 
the  people  in  its  subserviency  to  the  Crown,  than  was  the  Crown 
itself  at  any  past  period  of  its  conflicts  with  the  House  of  Commons. 

*  "  Thoughts  on  the  cause  of  the  present  discontents."  1770. 
t  January  21,1769. 


EDUCATION   AND   CHARACTER   OF   GEORGE   III.  53 

In  these  early  struggles  of  his  reign,  the  character  of  the  young 
prince,  as  indicated  by  lord  Waldegrave,  comes  out  with  tolerable 
clearness  : — an  intellect  not  deficient,  but  not  highly  cultivated — 
honesty  without  frankness — resolution,  approaching  to  obstinacy 
— indolence,  soon  overcome  by  a  strong  will — violent  prejudices, 
liable  to  mistake  wrong  for  right — sullen  anger — enduring  ani- 
mosity. But  we  must  not  on  the  other  hand  forget  that  the  party 
hostility,  and  even  national  dissatisfaction,  which  George  III.  pro- 
voked in  many  circumstances  of  his  long  reign,  did  not  alienate  from 
him  the  personal  loyalty  and  even  love  of  his  people.  They  re- 
spected the  example  of  his  private  life — his  strong  domestic  affec- 
tions ;  his  simple  tastes  and  unostentatious  habits ;  his  manly 
piety,  of  which  no  one  doubted  that  it  was  "free  from  hypocrisy." 
We  respect  these  qualities  now  ;  and  knowing  how  much  good  was 
effected  by  the  influence  of  his  example,  we  may  speak  of  his  polit- 
ical errors  with  compassion  rather  than  with  virulence.  Those 
errors,  as  far  as  the  king's  personal  character  was  concerned,  were 
more  the  subject  of  animadversion  in  the  first  twenty  years  of  his 
reign,  than  in  the  subsequent  period  in  which  he  exercised  the 
regal  authority.  That  he  might  possess  the  power  as  he  advanced 
in  life  of  correcting  some  of  the  original  defects  of  his  character, 
was  anticipated  by  lord  Waldegrave,  in  a  passage  which  is  omitted 
in  the  printed  edition  of  the  "  Memoirs,"  and  which  neutralises  in 
some  degree  the  generally  unfavourable  opinion  which  the  gov- 
ernor had  formed  of  the  pupil.  "  When  the  prince  shall  succeed 
his  grandfather,  there  may  possibly  be  changes  of  greater  conse- 
quence." Lord  Waldegrave  refers  to  the  confidence  in  lord  Bute 
which  had  succeeded  the  authority  of  the  nursery.  "  He  will  soon 
be  sensible  that  a  prince  who  suffers  himself  to  be  led,  is  not  to  be 
allowed  the  choice  of  a  conductor.  His  pride  will  then  give  battle 
to  his  indolence ;  and  having  made  this  first  effort,  a  moderate 
share  of  obstinacy  will  make  him  persevere."  The  pride  and  res- 
olution of  George  III.  subdued  his  indolence  in  a  remarkable  de- 
gree. Never  did  any  ruler  work  harder,  certainly  too  hard,  in  the 
endeavour  to  understand  and  influence  public  affairs.  He  did  his 
best  within  the  limits  of  his  ability.  Lord  Waldegrave  adds,  "  His 
honesty  will  incline  to  do  what  is  right ;  and  the  means  cannot  be 
wanting,  where  a  good  disposition  of  mind  is  joined  with  a  tolerable 
capacity  ;  for  a  superior  genius  does  not  seem  to  be  a.  sine  gud  non 
in  the  composition  of  a  good  king."  * 

The  king  for  some  time  did  "  suffer  himself  to  be  led,"  and  was 
not  "  allowed  the  choice  of  a  conductor."     The  earl  of  Bute  pre- 

*  First  given  in  the  "  Edinburgh  Review,"  vol.  xntvii.  p.  17. 


54  HISTORY   OF   ENGLAND. 

pared  his  Majesty's  first  Address  to  the  Privy  Council.  The  earl 
of  Bute,  the  Groom  of  the  Stole,  was  not  only  named  by  the  king 
as  a  member  of  the  Privy  Council,  but  also  of  the  Cabinet.*  To 
Mr.  Pitt  this  nomination  must  have  been  especially  offensive  ;  for 
in  the  king's  speech  to  the  Council  he  alluded  to  "  a  bloody  and  ex- 
pensive war."  The  great  minister,  who  had  conducted  that  war 
to  an  issue  which  redeemed  even  its  cost  of  blood  and  treasure, 
by  raising  England  out  of  her  abject  prostration  to  a  height  which 
was  her  safety  as  well  as  her  glory,  was  indignant  at  this  tone ;  and 
insisted  that  the  passage  should  go  forth  to  the  world  as  "  an  ex- 
pensive but  just  and  necessary  war."  But  the" duke  of  Newcastle 
and  Mr.  Pitt  continued  their  alliance  as  ministers  under  the  new 
sovereign.  They  were  not  very  cordial.  The  influence  of  Bute 
was  recognized  in  the  smothered  cry  of  "  No  Scotch  favourite  ; " 
and  the  uncertainty  of  the  final  preponderance  of  the  rivals  for 
power  was  expressed  in  the  joking  question,  whether  the  king  would 
burn  in  his  chamber,  Scotch-coal,  Newcastle-coal,  or  Pit-coal. 

On  the  i8th  of  November,  the  king  opened  the  parliament.  Lord 
Hardwicke  prepared  the  Speech,  of  which  he  sent  the  draught  to 
Mr.  Pitt.  When  it  was  to  be  settled  in  the  Cabinet,  the  words 
were  inserted  in  the  king's  own  writing  which  were  long  treasured 
up  in  loyal  memories  :  "  Born  and  educated  in  this  country,  I  glory 
in  the  name  of  Briton  ;  and  the  peculiar  happiness  of  my  life  will 
ever  consist  in  promoting  the  welfare  of  a  people  whose  loyalty 
and  warm  affection  to  me  I  consider  as  the  greatest  and  most  per- 
manent security  of  my  throne."  The  House  of  Commons  voted  a 
Civil  List  of  8oo,ooo/.,  upon  the  king  surrendering  the  hereditary 
revenue.  The  annual  subsidy  to  the  king  of  Prussia  was  renewed. 
Supplies  were  given  -to  the  extent  of  twenty  millions.  The  en- 
thusiasm with  which  the  king  was  greeted  by  his  subjects  was  in 
striking  contrast  with  the  coldness  that  had  attended  the  appear- 
ance in  public  of  George  II.  At  the  play,  the  whole  audience 
sang  "  God  save  the  king  "  in  chorus.  The  few  remaining  Jaco- 
bites gave  up  their  hatred  to  the  House  of  Hanover,  and  flocked  to 
St.  James's. 

How  short  a  time  this  happy  calm  was  to  last  may  be  inferred 
from  the  revelations  in  Bubb  Doddington's  Diary.  This  ancient 
intriguer  was  now  intriguing  with  Bute  against  the  king's  minis- 
ters. On  the  2oth  of  November  they  had  "  much  serious  and  con-, 
fidential  talk."  On  the  2pth  Doddington  pressed  Bute  to  take  the 

*  Sir  Denis  Le  Marchant  has  pointed  out  that  this  nomination  to  the  Cabinet,  and  not 
that  to  the  Pnvy  Council,  was  the  subject  of  animadversion  at  the  time. — Note  to  WaW 
pole's  "George  HI." 


POLICY  OF   THE   NEW   REIGN.  55 

Secretary's  office,  and  get  rid  of  lord  Holderness.  On  the  2oth  of 
December,  "  we  had  much  talk  about  setting  up  a  paper."  Their 
great  object  appears  to  be  embodied  in  the  following  passage  re- 
garding the  ministry,  which  has  especial  reference  to  Pitt :  "  I 
think,"  writes  Doddington,  on  the  2nd  of  January,  1761,  "  they  will 
continue  the  war  as  long  as  they  can ;  and  keep  in,  when  it  is  over, 
as  long  as  they  can ;  and  that  will  be  as  long  as  they  please,  if 
they  are  suffered  to  make  peace,  which  will  soon  be  so  neces- 
sary to  all  orders  and  conditions  of  men,  that  all  will  be  glad  of 
it,  be  it  what  it  will,  especially  if  it  comes  from  those  who  have 
all  the  offices  and  the  powers  of  office.  All  which  can  never 
end  well  for  the  king  and  lord  Bute."  How  it  would  end  for  the 
nation  was  not  a  matter  to  be  considered.  Amongst  the  weap- 
ons which  this  pair  devised  to  damage  Pitt  in  popular  estimation, 
they  "agreed  upon  getting  runners,"  hawkers  of  pamphlets  and 
bills.  Their  desire  also  to  return  to  one  of  the  practices  of  the 
good  old  times  is  thus  indicated :  "  We  wished  to  have  some 
coffee-house  spies,  but  I  do  not  know  how  to  contrive  it."  *  The 
habit  in  which  Bute  already  indulged  of  using  the  name  of  the  king 
as  an  authoritative  recommendation  of  any  political  action — even 
of  the  nomination  of  a  member  for  a  borough  under  government 
influence — must  have  excited  strong  doubts  of  the  wisdom  of  his 
majesty's  constitutional  training.  Bute  informed  Doddington,  on 
the  2nd  February,  "  that  he  had  told  Anson  that  room  must  be 
made  for  lord  Parker ;  who  replied,  that  all  was  engaged ;  and 
that  he  (Bute)  said,  'What,  my  lord!  the  king's  Admiralty  bor- 
oughs full,  and  the  king  not  acquainted  with  it' — that  Anson  seem- 
ed quite  disconcerted,  and  knew  not  what  to  say."  Within  a  week 
after  the  accession,  Walpole  wrote,  "  The  favourite  took  it  up  in 
high  style."  Three  months  later,  the  favourite  could  even  venture 
to  proclaim  the  policy  of  the  new  reign,  in  an  insolent  message  to 
Pitt.  "  Mr.  Beckford,  dropping  in  conversation  that  he  wished  to 
see  the  king  his  own  minister,  he  (lord  Bute)  replied,  that  his  great 
friend  Mr.  Pitt  did  not  desire  to  see  the  king  his  own  minister, 
and  he  might  tell  him  so,  if  he  pleased,  for  that  it  was  very  indiffer- 
ent to  him  (Bute)  if  every  word  he  said  was  carried  to  Mr.  Pitt."  f 
One  of  the  consequences  of  Mr.  Beckford's  wish  was  manifest 
when,  in  1770,  he,  being  lord-mayor,  harangued  the  king  on  the 
throne  in  words  which  assumed  that,  although  the  constitutional 
principle  holds  that  the  sovereign  can  do  no  wrong,  no  ministerial 
responsibility  was  recognized  to  shield  that  sovereign  from  the 
reproof  of  a  subject.  The  lord-mayor  had  a  constitutional  right, 

*  "  Diary,"*January,  9,  1764.  t  Ibid.,  February  at. 


56  HISTORY   OF   ENGLAND. 

which  he  had  exercised,  to  present  the  Address  of  the  City  to  the 
Sovereign.  To  that  Address  the  king  had  read  a  reply,  which  re- 
ply was  the  act  of  his  ministers.  When  Beckford  added  his  per- 
sonal remarks  upon  what  the  king  had  replied,  he  forgot  that  the 
king  could  not  answer  him,  according  to  the  theory  and  practice  of 
the  Constitution. 

When  the  king  went  to  Parliament  on  the  3rd  of  March,  to 
recommend  an  alteration  in  the  tenure  of  office  by  the  judges,  he 
did  not  assume  that  the  measure  then  proposed  was  more  than 
supplementary  to  a  far  greater  measure  of  the  period  of  the  Revolu- 
tion. His  majesty  said  :  "  In  consequence  of  the  Act  passed  in 
the  reign  of  my  late  glorious  predecessor  king  William  III.,  for 
settling  the  succession  to  the  crown  in  my  family,  their  commissions 
have  been  made  during  their  good  behaviour  ;  but  notwithstanding 
that  wise  provision,  their  offices  have  determined  upon  the  demise 
of  the  Crown  or  at  the  expiration  of  six  months  afterwards,  in 
every  instance  of  that  nature  which  has  happened."  The  king 
recommended  that  "further  provision  may  be  made  for  securing  the 
judges  in  the  enjoyment  of  their  offices,  during  their  good  beha- 
viour, notwithstanding  any  such  demise ;  "  and  that  their  salaries 
"should  be  absolutely  secured  to  them  during  the  continuance  of 
their  commissions."  Lord  Hardwicke,  on  moving  the  Address  of 
the  Peers  in  reply  to  the  king's  Speech,  gave  that  tone  of  some- 
what extravagant  eulogy  in  which  it  has  been  customary  to  speak, 
of  this  measure.  But  the  great  lawyer  treated  the  proposed 
change,  not  as  the  remedy  of  a  crying  evil,  though  admirable  as 
the  assertion  of  a  principle — "  The  judges  were  sworn  to  one 
king,  and  depended  upon  a  future  king  in  expectancy  ; — his  majesty 
demonstrated  his  wisdom  in  choosing  to  shut  this  door."  In  re- 
viewing historically  the  operation  of  the  laws  affecting  the  judicial 
independence,  he  dwelt  upon  the  evils  of  the  three  reigns  before 
the  Revolution,  when  the  judges  held  their  office  durante  bene 
placito.  Compared  with  these  times,  his  majesty  found  the  law 
in  a  happy  state.  Upon  the  accession  of  queen  Anne,  "  three 
judges  were  left  out,  and  all  the  rest  had  new  commissions.  Upon 
the  demise  of  George  I.,  the  like  happened,  but  only  one  left 
out."  "  A  cloud,"  lord  Hardwicke  truly  said,  "  might  arise  in 
futuro."  * 

On  the  2ist  of  March,  the  Parliament  was  dissolved  by  procla- 
mation. Previous  to  the  close  of  the  Session,  the  Speaker  Onslow, 
who  had  filled  the  chair  for  thirty-three  years,  announced  his  in- 
tention of  retiring.  The  Commons  united  in  a  vote,  asking  the 

*  Parliamentary  History,"  vol.  xv.  col.  1008.       Notes  of  Lord  Hardwicke's  Speech. 


THE    NEW    PARLIAMENT.  57 

Crown  to  bestow  upon  Onslow  some  signal  mark  of  its  favour.  He 
received  a  pension  of  3ooo/.  There  were  changes  in  the  ministry. 
Legge  ceased  to  be  Chancellor  of  the  Exchequer.  Holderness 
was  removed  from  his  office  of  one  of  the  Secretaries  of  State. 
The  earl  of  Bute  was  appointed  in  his  place.  That  change  was 
made  without  the  knowledge  of  Pitt,  the  other  Secretary.  He 
bore  the  neglect  patiently.  He  still  directed  the  conduct  of  for- 
eign affairs,  and  of  the  war.  He  was  listening  to  overtures  made  by 
France  to  negotiate  for  peace.  But  he  was  also  meditating  some 
further  enterprises  that  might  result  in  a  success  that  would  give 
greater  weight  to  the  terms  upon  which  he  desired  to  insist.  The 
General  Election  took  place.  Venality  was  never  carried  further. 
Mr.  Hallam  says,  "the  sale  of  seats  in  Parliament,  like  any  other 
transferable  property,  is  never  mentioned  in  any  book  that  I  re- 
member to  have  seen  of  an  earlier  date  than  1760."*  Bribery,  in 
the  approved  form  of  selling  a  pair  of  jack-boots  for  thirty  guineas, 
and  a  pair  of  wash-leather  breeches  for  fifty  pounds,  was  notorious 
enough  to  be  laughed  at  by  Foote.  Dr.  Johnson  maintained  thai 
"  the  statutes  against  bribery  were  intended  to  prevent  upstarts 
with  money  from  getting  into  parliament."  He  held  that  "  if  he 
were  a  gentleman  of  landed  property,  he  would  turn  out  all  his 
tenants  who  did  not  vote  for  the  candidate  whom  he  supported."  f 
The  struggle  between  the  "  upstarts  with  money  " — the  commer- 
cial interest — against  what  Johnson  called  "  the  old  family  inter- 
est," was  fast  becoming  a  formidable  one.  Bribery  was  the  readiest 
weapon  in  the  hands  of  the  weaker  of  the  political  combatants  of 
a  hundred  years  ago.  The  weapon  was  too  powerful  to  continue 
in  the  exclusive  hands  of  one  party.  It  was  more  efficient  even 
than  the  intimidation  of  the  owner  of  "  permanent  property," 
which  Johnson  thought  was  a  proper  restraint  upon  "  the  privilege 
of  voting."  A  century  of  legislation  has  done  little  beyond  ex- 
hibiting the  character  of  the  evil.  It  has  probably  only  lost  its 
shamelessness  to  become  more  dangerous. 

The  intended  marriage  of  the  king  to  the  princess  Charlotte  of 
Mecklenburg-Strelitz  was  announced  in  an  Extraordinary  Gazette 
of  the  8th  of  July,  detailing  the  communication  to  the  Privy  Coun- 
cil of  his  Majesty's  choice  of  a  consort.  In  the  "  Annual  Regis- 
ter "  this  document  is  given  ;  and  it  is  observed,  that  although  the 
people  were  desirous  of  seeing  their  young  sovereign  united  to  a 
princess  worthy  of  his  affection,  "  a  few  thought  he  might  find  in 
a  subject  one  every  way  qualified  to  wear  a  crown,  and  made  no 
difficulty  of  pointing  her  out."  Lady  Sarah  Lennox,  the  sister  of 

*  "  Constitutional  History."  chap.  xvi.  t  Boswell,  under  date  of  April  5.  1775, 


58  HISTORY   OF    ENGLAND. 

the  duke  of  Richmond,  was  the  lady  thus  glanced  at.     The  king's 
passion  for  her  was  notorious.     The  mother  of  the  king,  and  lord 
Bute,  are  held  to  have  turned  him  aside  from  this  beautiful  object 
of  his  love,  to  accept  a  bride  chosen  from  some  petty  German  court. 
Colonel  Graeme,  a  Jacobite,  was  employed  by  the  princess  dowager 
"  to  visit  various  little  Protestant  courts,  and  make  report  of  the 
qualifications  of  the  several  unmarried  princesses."  *     On  his  rep- 
resentation, the  princess   Charlotte  of  Mecklenburg  was  chosen. 
There  was  a  testimony  of  more  importance  to  the  character  of  the 
princess  than  that  of  this  ambassador,  who  was  congratulated  by 
David  Hume  "  in  having  exchanged  the  dangerous  employment  of 
making  kings  for  the  more  lucrative  province  of  making  queens."  J 
Frederick  of  Prussia  had  sent  a  letter  to  George   II.,  which  the 
princess  Charlotte,  then  a  girl  of  sixteen,  had  addressed  to  him, 
when  his  troops  were  over-running  the  territory  of  her  cousin,  the 
duke  of  Mecklenburg-Schwerin.     The  letter  is  bold  and  eloquent. 
Even  conquerors,  she  says,  would  weep  at  the  hideous  prospect 
before  her.     The  husbandman  and  the   shepherd  have  forsaken 
their  occupation ;  the  towns  are  inhabited  only  by  old  men,  wo- 
men, and  children.     The  rival  armies  insult  and  oppress  the  peo- 
ple, even  those  to  whom  they  might  look  for  redress.     She  can 
scarcely  congratulate  the  king  of  Prussia  on  his  victory,  when  it 
has  covered  her  country  with  desolation.     On  the  8th  of  Septem-. 
Ber,  the  princess  arrived  at  St.  James's,  and  the  marriage  was  cele- 
brated that  afternoon.     She,  who  for  fifty-seven  years  was  Queen- 
Consort,  and,  in  many  important  matters,  influenced  the  destinies 
of  the  country,  was  not  to  be  compared  in  personal  appearance 
with  lady  Sarah  Lennox,  or  with  another  object  of  early  passion, 
whose  name  lingered  on  the  lips  of  the  blind  and  aged  king,  when 
his  distempered  brain  called  up  the  ghosts  of  buried  fantasies.^ 
Of  the  queen,  as  she  appeared  on  her  bridal  night,  Walpole  says, 
"  she  looks  very  sensible,  cheerful,  and  is   remarkably  genteel." 
Her  good  sense  and  cheerfulness  appear  to  have  been  the  charac- 
teristics  of  queen    Charlotte  through  her  long  and  anxious  life. 
We  greatly  doubt  whether  she  can  fairly  be  described  as  "  of  nar- 
row and  uncultivated   understanding."  §     In  the    experiences  of 
Fanny  Burney  we  may  trace  many  evidences  of  her  quick  capacity 
and  her  shrewd  judgment ;  with  a  kindly  nature,  often   breaking 
through  the  restraints  of  courtly  etiquette,  to  be   considerate  and 
unaffected.     In  our  own  early  days  at  Windsor  we   heard   many 
anecdotes  of  queen  Charlotte  to  confirm  this  view  of  her  character; 

*  Walpole—"  George  III.,"  vol.  p.  65.  t  Ibid. 

t  See  Note  in  "  Quarterly  Review,"  vol.  cv.  p.  477.  §  Massey,  vol.  i.  p.  118. 


WARLIKE    OPERATIONS.  59 

with  not  a  few  stories  of  her  majesty's  economical  habits,  not  alto- 
gether of  a  royal  complexion. 

The  Coronation  of  the  king  and  queen  took  place  on  the  22nd 
of  September.  More  serious  considerations  were  coining  upon  the 
government  than  the  omissions  in  the  ceremonial  of  the  banquet — 
omissions  of  which  the  king  complained  to  the  Deputy  Earl  Mar- 
shal, and  the  provident  functionary  replied,  that  he  had  now  given 
such  directions  that  the  next  coronation  would  be  perfectly  well 
regulated.  The  negotiations  for  peace  with  France  were  at  an  end. 
A  more  extended  war  was  imminent. 

At  the  beginning  of  1761  the  foreign  affairs  of  France  were 
under  the  direction  of  the  duke  de  Choiseul,  who  had  been  first 
elevated  to  power  by  the  influence  of  madame  de  Pompadour. 
Louis  XV.  at  that  time  was  still  disturbed  by  those  apprehensions 
of  personal  danger  which  had  preyed  upon  him  since  the  attempt 
of  Damiens  upon  his  life  in  1757.  The  country  was  in  a  state 
of  great  misery,  which  presented  a  striking  contrast  to  the  ex- 
travagance of  the  Court.  France,  upon  the  verge  of  a  general 
national  bankruptcy,  was  humiliated  by  the  extraordinary  succes- 
ses which  had  accompanied  the  administration  of  Pitt.  The  duke 
de  Choiseul  had  proposed  a  general  negotiation  for  peace,  and 
plenipotentiaries  had  been  named  by  England  and  Prussia  to  treat 
at  a  congress  at  Augsburg.  But  he  also  suggested  a  previous 
negotiation  between  France  and  England.  M.  de  Bussy  arrived 
at  London  as  the  French  minister ;  and  Mr.  Hans  Stanley  was 
sent  to  Paris  as  the  English  negotiator.  The  despatches  of  Stanley 
to  Pitt  detail  the  progress  of  these  conferences  at  Paris.  The 
basis  of  pacification  proposed  was  the  uti possidetis — the  continued 
possession  of  whatever  territory  each  of  the  con  tracting_  powers 
might  hold  upon  a  day  named  ; — in  Europe,  for  example,  on  the  ist 
of  May  ensuing, — or  an  equivalent  to  such  possession.  The  in- 
structions which  Mr.  Stanley  received  were,  that  he  should  contend 
that  the  uti  possidetis  should  date  from  the  day  when  the  treaty 
was  signed.  Pitt,  as  we  have  said,  was  looking  to  further  conquests, 
which  would  give  England  a  claim  for  larger  equivalents.  On  the 
9th  of  June,  Choiseul  told  the  English  minister  that  Belle-He  was 
taken  ;  and  "  he  did  not  express  much  concern  or  any  resentment." 
The  capture  of  Belle-He,  an  island  near  the  mouth  of  the  Loire, 
on  the  west  coast  of  France,  could  not  be  regarded  by  the  English 
government  as  a  conquest  of  any  permanent  value.  But  Pitt,  never 
relaxing  from  a  vigorous  conduct  of  the  war  until  peace  was  abso- 
lutely secured,  did  not  hesitate  to  send  an  expedition  of  nine  thou- 
sand men  to  attack  the  fortresses  of  these  rugged  shores,  where  a 


60  HISTORY   OF   ENGLAND. 

few  thousand  fishermen  obtained  a  precarious  livelihood.  There 
was  a  great  sacrifice  of  life  ;  and  it  was  two  months  before  the  gar- 
rison of  Palais  capitulated.  About  the  same  period,  the  West  Indian 
island  of  Dominica  had  been  captured  ;  and  the  French  dominion 
in  the  East  Indies  had  been  finally  destroyed  by  the  surrender  of 
Pondicherry.  These  successes  gave  some  additional  force  to  Pitt's 
demands.  He  required  that  Minorca  should  be  restored  in  ex- 
change for  Belle-ile  He  demanded  other  concessions,  which  France 
was  unwilling  to  yield.  With  a  consistency  and  firmness  highly 
honourable,  he  insisted  that  in  making  a  separate  peace  with  France, 
England  should  not  be  restrained  from  lending  her  aid  to  the  king 
of  Prussia.  Frederick  was  truly  in  a  condition  to  require  her  aid. 
The  Austrians  were  in  possession  of  the  most  important  posts  in 
Silesia.  In  Pomerania  the  Russians  had  overpowered  his  com- 
manders. All  his  resources  were  fast  failing,  except  his  own 
indomitable  energy.  In  a  remarkable  letter  which  Frederick  wrote 
to  Pitt  about  this  time,  he  declares  his  resolution  to  take  for  his 
examples,  Hannibal  after  the  battle  of  Cannae ;  Elizabeth,,  at  the 
time  of  the  Spanish  Armada ;  Gustavus  Vasa,  when  he  drove  Chris- 
tian from  Sweden ;  the  prince  of  Orange,  who  founded  the  repub- 
lic of  the  United  Provinces.  The  king  of  England  said  Fred- 
erick, has  to  choose  one  of  two  courses  ;  to  think  only  of  the 
interests  of  England,  and  forget  those  of  his  allies  ;  or  to  unite 
the  interests  of  his  own  nation  with  theirs,  and  thus  uphold  his 
good  faith  and  his  glory.  "  I  am  persuaded,"  he  added  to  Pitt  per- 
sonally, "that  you  think  like  me.  All  the  course  of  your  ministry 
has  been  one  series  of  noble  and  generous  actions,  and  the  minds 
that  heaven  has  made  of  this  temper  never  belie  themselves."* 
Pitt  gave  Frederick  the  assurance  of  "  the  constancy  of  the  king 
my  master."  Pitt  was  compelled  to  leave  to  others  the  interpreta- 
tion of  that  assurance.  The  British,  the  Hanoverians,  and  the 
Prussians  had  been  fighting  together  as  allies,  in  the  campaign  of 
1761.  The  result  of  the  campaign  left  the  war  without  any  decisive 
results ;  but  the  skill  of  prince  Ferdinand,  and  the  valour  of  the 
British  under  the  Marquis  of  Granby  and  general  Con  way,  were 
signally  displayed  through  a  series  of  difficult  operations,  and 
especially  in  the  battle  of  Kirch-Denkern,  on  the  I5th  of  July. 

As  the  negotiations  advanced  between  Great  Britain  and  France? 
the  demands  of  the  duke  de  Choiseul  were  enlarged  and  his 
attitude  became  more  firm.  M.  de  Bussy  delivered  the  ultimatum 
of  his  court  on  the  5th  of  August ;  in  answer  to  which  Pitt  com- 
plained that  France  had  not  scrupled  to  interpose  new  perplex- 

•  "  Chatham  Correspondence,"  vol.  ii.  p.  107. 


THE    FAMILY   COMPACT.  6 1 

ties  in  opposition  to  the  blessing  of  peace,  "  by  intermixing,  too 
late,  matters  so  foreign  to  the  present  negotiation  between  the 
two  crowns,  as  are  the  discussions  between  Great  Britain  and 
Spain."  He  had  previously  written  to  Bussy  in  a  tone  of  high 
indignation  that  France  should  "  presume  a  right  of  intermeddling 
in  any  differences  between  the  two  crowns."  The  motive  for  this 
intermeddling  was  soon  apparent.  On  the  I5th  of  August,  the 
duke  de  Choiseul  and  the  marquis  of  Grimaldi,  the  Spanish  ambas- 
sador at  the  court  of  France,  signed  the  treaty  known  as  "  The 
Family  Compact ; "  by  which  the  two  branches  of  the  House  of 
Bourbon  agreed  to  consider  the  enemy  of  either  as  the  enemy  of 
both ;  to  guarantee  each  other's  territories ;  to  give  each  other 
mutual  succours  by  sea  and  land.  Pitt  obtained  early  and  precise 
information  upon  the  subject  of  this  ominous  alliance.  He  broke 
off  the  negotiations  with  France,  recalling  Mr.  Stanley  and  dismiss- 
ing M.  de  Bussy.  He  contemplated  a  bolder  measure.  He  could 
scarcely  hope  for  the  cordial  approbation  of  his  colleagues  when  he 
proposed  an  immediate  declaration  of  war  against  Spain ;  for  a 
considerable  number  of  the  Cabinet  had  been  adverse  to  the  strong 
language  he  had  held  to  M.  de  Bussy.  But  he  trusted  to  the  pos- 
sibility of  infusing  his  own  spirit  into  the  temporizing  policy  which 
Bute  and  others  advocated.  In  a  debate  in  the  House  of  Lords  in 
1770,  on  the  seizure  of  the  Falkland  Islands,  Lord  Chatham  alluded 
to  his  conduct  towards  the  Spanish  ministers  in  1761  :  "After  a 
long  experience  of  their  want  of  candour  and  good  faith,  I  found 
myself  compelled  to  talk  to  them  in  a  peremptory,  decisive  lan- 
guage. On  this  principle  I  submitted  my  advice  to  a  trembling 
council  for  an  immediate  declaration  of  a  war  with  Spain."  *  The 
scene  before  that  "  trembling  council "  has  been  recorded  by 
Burke,  who  had  especial  means  of  accurate  information.  Pitt 
called  upon  his  colleagues  to  strike  the  first  blow  against  Spain, 
instead  of  waiting  for  a  joint  attack  upon  Great  Britain  by  Spain 
and  France ;  he  maintained  that  no  new  armament  was  necessary; 
that  the  time  was  propitious  for  seizing  the  Spanish  treasure-ships, 
before  their  arrival  in  port.  Temple^  was  the  only  minister  who 
stood  by  Pitt.  His  proposal,  Bute  contended,  was  rash  and  unad- 
visable.  Newcastle  saw  that  his  great  coadjutor  would  be  in  a 
minority,  and  he  supported  the  favourite.  Pitt  had  to  succumb,  or 
to  quit  office.  He  thus  declared  himself :  "  This  was  the  time  for 
humbling  the  whole  house  of  Bourbon ;  if  this  opportunity  were 
let  slip,  it  might  never  be  recovered  ;  and  if  he  could  not  prevail 
in  this  instance,  he  was  resolved  that  this  was  the  last  time  he 

*  "  Parliamentary  History,"  vol.  xvi.  col.  1094. 


62  HISTORY   OF    ENGLAND. 

should  sit  in  that  council.  He  thanked  the  ministers  of  the  late 
king  for  their  support;  said  he  was  himself  called  to  the  ministry 
by  the  voice  of  the  people,  to  whom  he  considered  himself  as  ac- 
countable for  his  conduct ;  and  that  he  would  no  longer  remain  in 
a  situation  which  made  him  responsible  for  measures  he  was  no 
longer  allowed  to  guide."  Lord  Granville  (Carteret),  the  President 
of  the  Council,  thus  replied:  "  I  find  the  gentleman  is  determined 
to  leave  us,  .nor  can  I  say  I  am  sorry  for  it,  since  he  would  other- 
wise have  certainly  compelled  us  to  leave  him ;  but,  if  he  be  re- 
solved to  assume  the  right  of  advising  his  majesty,  and  directing 
the  operations  of  the  war,  to  what  purpose  are  we  called  to  this 
council  ?  When  he  talks  of  being  responsible  to  the  people,  he 
talks  the  language  of  the  House  of  Commons,  and  forgets,  that  at 
this  board,  he  is  only  responsible  to  the  king.  However,  though 
he  may  possibly  have  convinced  himself  of  his  infallibility,  still  it 
remains  that  we  should  be  equally  convinced  before  we  can  resign 
our  understandings  to  his  direction,  or  join  with  him  in  the  meas- 
ure he  proposes."  *  On  the  5th  of  October,  Pitt  resigned  the  seals 
of  Secretary  of  State ;  and  Temple  followed  him  in  his  retirement. 
When  Pitt  waited  on  the  king  to  give  up  the  seals,  his  majesty 
testified  his  regret  at  losing  so  able  a  servant ;  offered  him  any 
reward  in  the  power  of  the  crown  to  bestow ;  but  expressed  his 
concurrence  in  the  decision  of  the  Cabinet.  The  reply  of  Pitt  was 
marked  by  that  reverential  demeanour  with  which  he  always  ap- 
proached the  royal  person :  "  I  confess,  Sir,  I  had  but  too  much 
reason  to  expect  your  majesty's  displeasure.  I  did  not  come  pre- 
pared for  this  exceeding  goodness.  Pardon  me,  Sir, — it  over- 
powers, it  oppresses  me."  He  burst  into  tears,  f  The  immediate 
popularity  of  the  great  minister  was  seriously  damaged  by  his 
acceptance  of  a  pension  of  3ooo/.  a  year,  and  of  a  peerage  for  his 
wife,  who  was  created  Baroness  Chatham.  Burke  says  that  a  tor- 
rent of  low  and  illiberal  abuse  was  poured  out  on  this  occasion. 
Pitt,  for  a  little  while,  became  the  object  of  lampoons  and  carica- 
tures, ascribed  to  persons  "  in  the  interest  or  pay  of  Bute."  J 
Great  was  the  rejoicing  at  the  fall  of  the  man  who  had  rescued  his 
country  out  of  the  hands  of  venal  and  incapable  tricksters,  to 
replace  her  in  the  position  which  had  been  lost  by  their  imbecility 
and  corruption.  "  The  Court,"  says  Walpole,  "  impatient  to  notify 
their  triumph,  and  to  blast  his  popularity  at  once,  could  not  resist 
the  impulse  of  publishing,  in  the  very  next  night's  Gazette,  Mr. 
Pitt's  acceptance  of  their  boons — the  first  instance,  I  believe,  of  a 

*  "  Annual  Register,"  1761,  pp.  43,  44.  t  Ibid.,  p.  45. 

$  Wright—"  House  of  Hanover,"  vol.  i.  p.  395. 


MR.  PITT'S  PENSION.  63 

pension  ever  specified  in  that  paper."*  Bubb  Doddington  wrote 
to  congratulate  Bute  "  of  being  delivered  of  a  most  impracticable 
colleague^  his  majesty  of  a  most  imperious  servant,  and  the  country 
of  a  most  dangerous  minister."  If  Bute,  in  addition  to  the  an- 
nouncement in  the  Gazette  of  the  pension  and  the  peerage,  had 
published  the  letter  in  which  Pitt  acknowledged  the  court  boons, 
would  the  public  of  that  day  have  seen  in  the  "imperious  servant" 
what  in  our  times  has  been  with  some  slight  injustice  regarded  as 
an  imitation  of  "the  fulsome  prostration  of  queen  Elizabeth's 
courtiers  ?  "f  The  time  was  not  yet  come  when  even  those  who 
rejected  and  despised  the  doctrine  of  the  Crown  being  held  by 
divine  right,  thought  themselves  free  to  regard  the  constitutional 
wearer  of  the  crown  as  only  the  first  civil  servant  of  the  state— as 
any  other  than  as  "  our  sovereign  lord  the  king."  What  may  appear 
sycophancy  to  us  was  the  decorum  of  a  century  ago.  We  are 
inclined  to  believe  that  Pitt — who  is  said  to  have  knelt  when  he 
was  with  George  II.  in  his  closet,  and  to  have  bowed  so  low  at  the 
levee  that  his  hooked  nose  was  seen  between  his  legs — adopted 
this  style  systematically  and  upon  principle,  to  make  the  compat- 
ibility of  his  strongest  objections  to  the  measures  of  the  Crown, 
with  the  profoundest  reverence  for  the  wearer  of  the  Crown.  He 
might  be  "  prostrated  with  the  bounteous  favour  of  a  most  benign 
sovereign  and  master  "  %  without  surrendering  the  opinions  which 
had  compelled  him  to  leave  the  service  of  that  master.  Earl 
Temple,  who  carried  his  political  independence  to  greater  extremes 
than  Pitt,  said  that  his  brother-in-law  would  have  been  the  most 
factious  and  insolent  man  living  had  he  waived  the  offer  of  his 
sovereign's  favours  ;  that  their  acceptance  bound  him  to  nothing 
"  but  to  love  and  honour  his  majesty  ....  He  is  as  much  a  free 
man  as  myself."  § 

The  popularity  of  Pitt  did  not  sustain  any  lasting  damage  by 
his  acceptance  of  the  king's  favours.  Gray  might  exclaim,  "  Oh  ! 
that  foolishest  of  great  men,  that  sold  his  inestimable  diamond  for 
a  peerage  and  pension  !  "  ||  Walpole  might  talk  of  the  giant  who 
"  stalking  to  seize  the  Tower  of  London,  stumbled  over  a  silver 
penny,  picked  it  up,  and  carried  it  home  to  Lady  Hester."  Tf  But 
the  multitude  saw  more  clearly  than  the  secluded  poet  or  the  fash- 
ionable satirist.  Alderman  Beckford  wrote  to  Pitt  to  entreat  him 

*  Walpole— "  George  III.,"  vol.  i.  p.  83. 

t  "  Quarterly  Review,"  vol.  cv.  p.  469. 

t  "  Chatham  Correspondence,"  vol.  ii.  p.  149. 

§  "  Grenville  Papers,"  vol.  i.  p.  404. 

0  Letter  to  Wharton.  If  Letter  to  Countess  of  AilesSury. 


64  HISTORY   OF    ENGLAND. 

to  come  to  the  lord  mayor's  dinner  at  the  Mansion  House,  on  the 
pth  of  November,  where  the  king  and  queen  were  to  go  in  state. 
He  went  with  lord  Temple ;  and  he  has  been  blamed  for  going 
His  reception  by  the  people  is  thus  recorded :  "  At  every  step  the 
mob  clung  about  every  part  of  the  vehicle,  hung  upon  the  wheels, 
hugged  his  footmen,  and  even  kissed  his  horses.  There  was  an 
universal  huzza;  and  the  gentlemen  at  the  windows  and  in  the 
balconies  waved  their  hats,  and  the  ladies  their  handkerchiefs."  * 
Lady  Chatham  recorded  in  a  note  upon  Beckford's  letter,  that  her 
husband  in  this  display  acted  against  his  better  judgment.  The 
hour  was  fast  approaching  when  the  national  approbation  of  the 
great  war-minister  would  rest  upon  a  more  solid  foundation  than 
the  shouts  of  the  multitude. 

The  new  Parliament  met  on  the  3rd  of  November.  The  king's 
speech  promised  a  vigorous  prosecution  of  the  war.  Lord  Egre- 
mont  had  been  appointed  Secretary  of  State  in  the  place  of  Pitt. 
George  Grenville  became  leader  of  the  House  of  Commons,  hold- 
ing the  office  of  Treasurer  of  the  Navy.  The  chief  point  of  in- 
terest was  the  conduct  and  demeanour  of  the  minister  who  had 
abdicated.  Walpole  has  recorded  the  debates  of  this  interesting 
period,  and  has  thus  supplied  the  hiatus  in  our  Parliamentary  His- 
tory. \  "  He  had  resigned  the  seals,"  Pitt  said,  "  in  order  not  to 
be  responsible  for  measures  he  was  no  longer  suffered  to  guide, 
and  from  seeing  the  question  of  Spain  in  the  light  he  saw  it.  He 
had  acted  from  conviction,  as  he  supposed  the  great  lords  who 
had  opposed  him  had  done  likewise."  He  boldly  maintained  the 
necessity  of  continuing  the  German  war.  "  America  had  been 
conquered  in  Germany."  In  another  debate  George  Grenville, 
who  had  supported  Pitt's  German  policy  during  his  tenure  of  power^ 
now  openly  opposed  it.  A  ruder  assailant  than  Grenville  was 
now  loosened  upon  Pitt.  Colonel  Barre,  a  new  member,  denounced 
him  as  a  profligate  minister,  who  had  thrust  himself  into  power  on 
the  shoulders  of  the  mob.  Attack  upon  attack  was  made  upon  the 
ex-minister;  but  he  preserved  a  wonderful  calmness.  To  the  rude 
assaults  of  Barre  he  deigned  no  reply,  but  turning  round  to  Beck- 
ford,  asked,  pretty  loud,  "How  far  the  scalping  Indians  cast  their 
tomahawks  ?  "  Walpole  regrets  that  Pitt  did  not  utter  a  few  words, 
"  stating  to  Barre  the  indecence  of  treating  an  infirm  and  much 
older  man  with  such  licence ;  showing  him  that  insult  could  not  be 
resented  when  offered  in  a  public  assembly,  who  always  interpose ; 
and  putting  both  him  and  the  audience  in  mind  that  a  man  who 

*  "Annual  Register,"  1761,  p.  237. 

t  "Memoirs  of  the  Reign  of  George  III."  vol.  i.  pp.  99  to  no. 


WAR   DECLARED   AGAINST   SPAIN.  65 

had  gained  the  hearts  of  his  countrymen  by  his  services,  coutd  only 
forfeit  them  by  his  own  conduct,  and  not  by  the  railing  of  a  private 
individual."  The  attacks  which  had  been  prompted  by  those  who 
had  rejoiced  in  forcing  Pitt  from  the  power  which  he  had  wielded 
so  well,  contributed  to  their  own  confusion ;  when  events  which 
they  could  not  control  soon  manifested  the  wisdom  of  the  policy 
which  he  had  advocated.  What  he  knew,  and  what  in  a  written 
paper  he  had  told  the  Cabinet  he  knew,  of  the  alliance  of  Spain 
and  France,  became  manifest  when  the  opportunity  had  passed 
away  of  striking  a  great  blow  at  the  power  of  one  party  to  the 
Family  Compact.  On  the  2nd  of  January,  1762,  the  king  declared 
in  Council  his  resolution  of  making  war  on  Spain.  "  The  ministers, 
who  had  driven  out  Mr.  Pitt  rather  than  embrace  this  necessary 
measure,  were  reduced  to  adopt  it  at  the  expense  of  vindicating 
him  and  condemning  themselves."  *  The  count  de  Fuentes,  upon 
being  ordered  to  leave  London,  attributed  the  approaching  rupture 
between  Great  Britain  and  Spain,  "  to  the  pride  and  to  the  un- 
measurable  ambition  of  him  who  has  held  the  reins  of  the  govern- 
ment, and  who  appears  still  to  hold  them,  although  by  another 
hand."  There  was  no  other  hand  to  take  the  helm  which  Pitt  had 
resigned.  But  the  chart  which  he  had  laid  down  for  the  course 
of  the  state-vessel  was  found  to  be  the  only  possible  guide,  through 
that  perilous  sea  upon  which  Bute  and  his  adherents  had  embarked, 
in  the  confidence  with  which  mediocrity  sometimes  presumes  to 
carry  on  the  work  which  genius  has  begun.  The  ministers  adopted 
the  war  policy  of  Pitt  with  regard  to  Spain ;  but  they  could  not  see 
the  principle  upon  which  he  had  endeavoured  to  make  the  efforts 
of  England  and  her  allies,  in  one  scene  of  action,  have  a  corre- 
sponding effect  upon  the  particular  operations  of  England  in  another 
scene.  They  could  not  understand  what  he  meant  in  declaring 
that  "  he  had  conquered  America  in  Germany."  Whilst  there- 
fore they  prepared  to  carry  out  his  plans  in  an  attack  upon  the 
Havannah,  and  upon  islands  in  the  West  Indies,  they  at  the  same 
time  alienated  for  ever  the  king  of  Prussia,  by  meanly  evading  the 
annual  grant  of  the  subsidy  which  Pitt  had  engaged  to  obtain  from 
Parliament  during  the  continuance  of  the  war.  In  the  king's  speech 
Frederick  was  "  our  magnanimous  ally ;  "  but  Bute  took  every 
means  to  withhold  that  support  which  the  English  nation  were 
eager  to  recognize  as  the  just  tribute  to  a  brave  man  struggling 
with  misfortune.  The  king  of  Prussia  finally  overcame  his  host  of 
enemies,  and  built  up  the  great  kingdom  which  now  so  largely 
influences  the  policy  of  all  European  states.  But  the  base  deser- 

*  Walpole— "  George  III.,  "  vol.  i.  p.  ia8. 

VOL.  VI. —s 


66  HISTORY   OF   ENGLAND. 

tion  of  the  Cabinet  of  George  III.  in  the  hour  of  his  need  was 
never  forgotten. 

With  disjointed  plans,  the  government  of  lord  Bute — for  he  be- 
came really  supreme  long  before  the  retirement  of  the  duke  of 
Newcastle  in  June  1762 — set  about  the  conduct  of  hostilities.  The 
Parliament  met  on  the  ipth  of  January.  The  king  in  his  speech 
announced  the  war  with  Spain,  resting  his  cause  upon  the  Family 
Compact.  What  the  ministry  put  into  the  mouth  of  the  king  was 
of  less  importance  than  the  sentiments  uttered  by  Pitt.  He  did 
not  shrink  from  vindicating,  but  with  modesty,  his  own  claims 
to  the  honour  due  to  his  intelligence  and  foresight.  But  the  real 
patriotism  of  the  statesman  burst  forth  when  he  exclaimed,  "  What 
imported  it  what  one  man  or  another  had  thought  three  months 
before  ?  The  moment  was  come  when  every  man  ought  to  show 
himself  for  the  whole.  I  do,  cruelly  as  I  have  been  treated  in 
pamphlets  and  libels.  Arm  the  whole .'  Be  one  people !  This 
war,  though  it  has  cut  deep  into  our  pecuniary  means,  has  aug- 
mented our  military  faculties.  Set  that  against  the  debt — that 
spirit  which  has  made  us  what  we  are.  Forget  everything  but  the 
public  !  For  the  public  I  forget  both  my  wrongs  and  my  infirmi 
ties."*  The  man  who  was  thus  rousing  the  spirit  of  England,  was 
the  author  of  projects  that  were  to  give  new  confidence  to  the 
heart  of  the  nation  by  success.  Pitt  had  arranged  an  expedition 
against  the  French  island  of  Martinique,  before  he  quitted  office  ; 
and  he  had  intended  that  the  same  expedition  should  proceed 
against  Havannah,  in  the  event  of  a  rupture  with  Spain.  Admi- 
ral Rodney  commanded  a  fleet,  carrying  twelve  thousand  men, 
under  the  command  of  general  Moncton.  They  disembarked  at  a 
creek  in  Martinique  on  the  7th  of  January  ;  reduced  several  strong 
posts ;  and  the  island  was  speedily  surrendered,  although  some  of 
its  works  had  been  deemed  impregnable.  Grenada,  St.  Lucia,  and 
St.  Vincent  were  as  quickly  taken.  All  men  gave  Pitt  the  credit 
of  this  triumph.  On  the  5th  of  March,  an  expedition  sailed  from 
Portsmouth,  under  admiral  sir  George  Pocock,  with  land  forces 
commanded  by  the  earl  of  Albemarle.  At  Martinique  they  were 
joined  by  a  portion  of  the  forces  that  had  effected  the  conquest  of 
that  island.  The  British  naval  force  consisted  of  nineteen  ships  of 
the  line,  with  smaller  vessels  ;  the  transports  carried  ten  thousand 
troops.  The  Havannah  was  finally  taken  ;  but  with  a  tremendous 
.sacrifice  of  life.  The  city  had  been  strongly  fortified.  The  entrance 
to  the  harbour,  within  which  were  twelve  Spanish  ships  of  the  line, 
was  defended  by  two  forts,  the  Pantal,  and  the  Moro.  From  the 

*  Walpole— "  George  III.,"  p.  134. 


PRELIMINARIES   OF    PEACE   SIGNED.  67 

1 2th  of  June  to  the  30th  of  July,  the  soldiers  and  sailors  vigorously 
pursued  the  siege  of  Moro,  suffering  greatly  from  the  climate.  On 
that  day  the  Moro  was  taken  by  assault.  The  Havannah  was  then 
besieged  ;  and  was  finally  surrendered  on  the  I2th  of  August,  with 
all  the  ships  in  the  harbour.  To  complete  the  triumphant  opera- 
tions which  Pitt  had  devised,  the  Philippine  islands  were  captured 
by  an  expedition  sent  out  from  Madras. 

On  the  25th  of  November,  the  Session  of  Parliament  was  opened 
with  an  elaborate  speech  from  the  throne.  The  king  reviewed  the 
circumstances  in  which  he  found  the  country  upon  his  accession, 
"  engaged  in  a  bloody  and  expensive  war."  He  resolved  to  prose- 
cute it  with  the  utmost  vigour  ;  "  determined,  however,  to  consent 
to  peace  upon  just  and  honourable  terms,  whenever  the  events  of 
the  war  should  incline  the  enemy  to  the  same  pacific  disposition.1' 
His  majesty  then  noticed  the  failure  of  negotiations  ;  and  the  sub- 
sequent exertions  of  national  strength.  "  History  cannot  furnish 
examples  of  greater  glory,  a  greater  advantage  acquired  by  the 
arms  of  this  or  any  other  nation,  in  so  short  a  period  of  time."  The 
king  then  announced,  that  through  these  exertions  his  enemies  had 
been  brought  to  consent  to  terms  of  peace,  and  that  the  preliminary 
articles  had  been  signed.  "  The  conditions  of  these  are  such  that 
there  is  not  only  an  immense  territory  added  to  the  empire  of  Great 
Britain,  but  a  solid  foundation  laid  for  the  increase  of  trade  and 
commerce."  The  interests  of  his  majesty's  allies  had  not  been 
forgotten.  "  I  have  made  peace  for  the  king  of  Portugal,  securing 
to  him  all  his  dominions  ;  *  and  all  the  territories  of  the  king  of 
Prussia,  as  well  as  of  any  other  allies  in  Germany  and  elsewhere, 
occupied  by  the  armies  of  France,  are  to  be  immediately  evacuated." 
The  speech  thus  concluded  :  "  We  could  never  have  carried  on 
this  extensive  war  without  the  greatest  union  at  home.  You  will 
find  the  same  union  peculiarly  necessary,  in  order  to  make  use  of 
tbe  great  advantages  acquired  by  the  peace  ;  and  to  lay  the  foun- 
dations of  that  economy  which  we  owe  to  ourselves  and  to  our 
posterity  ;  and  which  can  alone  relieve  this  nation  from  the  heavy 
burthens  brought  upon  it  by  the  necessities  of  this  long  and  expen- 
sive war." 

The  preliminaries  of  this  peace  were  signed  at  Fontainebleau 
on  the  3rd  of  November.  In  the  previous  negotiations  lord  Bute 
had  manifested  an  anxiety  for  an  immediate  pacification,  which  ex- 
hibited more  of  the  character  of  a  humiliated  than  a  triumphant 
nation.  Whilst  the  results  of  the  expeditions  against  the  Havan- 

*  Upon  the  English  rupture  with  Spain,  war  had  been  declared  by  France  and  Spain 
«gainst  Portugal,  to  compel  her  to  depart  from  her  neutrality. 


68  HISTORY   OF   ENGLAND. 

nah  and  the  Philippine  islands  were  as  yet  unknown,  he  was  wil* 
ling  to  consent  that  they  should  be  restored  to  Spain  without  con- 
ditions, if  the  British  arms  had  been  successful.  The  Spanish 
minister  thought  the  expeditions  would  fail ;  and  therefore  delayed 
signing  the  preliminaries,  that  he  might  take  advantage  of  a  defeat. 
When  the  success  was  known,  Bute  would  have  given  up  Havan- 
nah  and  Manilla,  without  any  equivalent.  His  colleagues  differed 
from  him;  and  Florida,  then  a  very  useless  possession,  was  at  length 
accepted,  and  the  great  Indian  colonies  of  Spain  were  restored. 
The  other  acquisitions  of  Great  Britain  were, — the  whole  of  the 
French  provinces  in  North  America  ;  the  West  India  islands  of  To- 
bago, Dominica,  St.  Vincent,  and  Granada;  Minorca  restored  in 
exchange  for  Belle- lie.  Spain  gave  up  the  points  in  dispute  between 
her  and  Great  Britain,  upon  which  she  had  ventured  to  risk  a  war. 
As  to  the  contest  still  continuing  jn  Germany,  it  was  agreed  that 
France  and  England  should  withdraw  altogether  from  interference. 
The  definitive  treaty  of  Peace  was  signed  at  Paris  on  the  loth  of 
February,  1763.  On  the  ifth  of  the  same  month,  peace  was  con- 
cluded between  the  empress  Maria  Theresa,  the  elector  of  Saxony, 
and  the  king  of  Prussia.  The  Seven  Years'  War  ended  by  replacing 
the  parties  to  this  great  quarrel  in  the  exact  position  in  regard  to 
territory  in  which  they  stood  before  its  commencement. 

It  is  scarcely  necessary,  now,  to  enter  upon  an  examination  of 
the  question,  whether  England  could  have  obtained  better  terms 
in  the  final  pacification,  had  Pitt  been  permitted  to  carry  his  great 
plans  onward  to  their  maturity.  His  complaints  against  the  con- 
ditions of  the  peace  were  vehemently  urged  in  Parliament.  He 
thought  that  the  House  of  Bourbon  had  not  been  sufficiently 
humbled.  "  He  prayed  for  the  House  of  Brunswick  ;  stood  on 
revolution  principles  alone  against  France  ;  had  a  deep-rooted 
alienation  from  France  ;  acted  on  the  spirit  of  king  William,  on 
whose  maxims,  and  on  the  maxims  in  which  they  came  hither,  the 
House  of  Brunswick  must  rest,  or  could  never  be  secure."  *  The 
great  Commoner  had  truly  stated  the  debtor  and  creditor  account 
of  this  war,  when  he  proposed  to  set  against  its  cost  "  that  spirit 
which  has  made  us  what  we  are."  In  1755,  the  unredeemed  capital 
of  the  national  debt  of  Great  Britain  and  Ireland  was  72,505,5727. 
In  1763  it  amounted  to  132,716,0497.  Aburden  upon  posterity  had 
been  created  by  this  war  of  sixty  millions.  The  interest  upon  the 
debt  in  1755  was  2,650,0417.  In  1763  it  had  increased  to  5,032.7337. 
Looking  to  the  mere  question  of  figures,  we  may  assume  that  we 
are  paying  at  the  present  hour  very  nearly  two  millions  and  a  half 
*  Walpole — "  George  III.,"  vol.  i.  p.  239. 


THE   COST   OF   THE   WAR  ;   AND   ITS    USES.  69 

annually  for  the  glories  of  Mr.  Pitt's  administration.  The  nation 
at  that  day  scarcely  felt  the  pressure  of  increased  taxation  occa- 
sioned by  the  war  ;  for  it  was  the  constant  boast  of  Pitt — a  boast 
which  is  inscribed  upon  his  monument  in  Guildhall — that  under  his 
administration  commerce  had  flourished  in  company  with  war. 
This  is  an  anomalous  prosperity,  which  may  partially  stimulate  the 
enterprise  of  a  maritime  nation,  and  irregularly  add  to  its  powers 
of  production.  But  the  waste  of  capital,  the  necessary  imposition 
of  high  prices  upon  the  labouring  classes,  and  the  heaping  up  of 
burdens  for  a  coming  generation,  are  evils  which  can  never  be 
compensated  by  military  glory  or  territorial  acquisitions.  But  they 
are  compensated  when  a  nation  is  awakened  by  war  out  of  a  de- 
graded condition  ;  when  the  principle  of  an  exalted  patriotism  and 
a  generous  loyalty  takes  the  place  of  a  venal  self-seeking  and  a 
miserable  abnegation  of  public  duty.  England  was  in  this  apathetic 
state  when  Pitt  took  the  direction  of  her  affairs.  When  he 

"  Consulting  England's  happiness  at  home, 
Secured  it  by  an  unforgiving  frown 
If  any  wrong'd  her."  * 

He  raised  the  people  to  a  just  appreciation  of  the  spirit  in  which 
he  had  laboured  for  the  elevation  of  his  country.  That  some  of  that 
spirit  has  been  transmitted  to  us  during  the  lapse  of  a  century  may 
be,  even  now,  a  compensation  for  the  two  shillings  a  head  that 
every  one  of  the  twenty-five  millions  of  the  existing  population  has 
annually  to  pay  towards  the  perpetual  burden  of  taxation  created 
by  the  war  that  was  terminated  by  the  peace  of  Paris. 

*  Cowper— "  Task,"  b.  2. 


70  HISTORY   OF   ENGLAND. 


CHAPTER  IV. 

Lord  Bute  Prime  Minister. — Policy  of  the  Favourite. — John  Wilkes. — Lord  Bute  resigns, 
— George  Grenville's  Ministry. — "North  Briton,"  No.  45. — Arrest  of  Wilkes. — 
Negotiations  for  Mr.  Pitt's  return  to  power. — The  king's  desire  to  govern. — The 
Wilkite  agitation. — Hogarth,  Wilkes,  and  Churchill. — Wilkes  ordered  to  be  prose- 
cuted.— Expelled  the  House  of  Commons. — Great  Debates  on  General  Warrants. — 
Officers  dismissed  for  votes  in  Parliament. — Restrictions  on  the  American  Colonies. — 
Grenville's  Resolutions  on  American  Taxation. — The  Stamp  Act  passed. — Resist- 
ance in  America. — Motives  for  passing  the  Stamp  Act. 

THE  influence  of  Pitt  upon  the  action  of  the  government  was  at 
an  end,  when  the  war  which  he  had  directed,  and  to  which  he 
continued  to  lend  his  spirit,  came  to  an  end.  The  policy  in  the 
conduct  of  the  internal  affairs  of  Great  Britain,  which  now  com- 
menced its  development,  provoked  an  opposition,  resulting  in  a 
conflict,  in  some  respects  the  most  lamentable,  if  not  the  most 
disgraceful,  which  had  been  witnessed  in  previous  antagonism  of 
the  authority  of  government  and  the  popular  sentiment.  The  earl 
of  Bute  became  ostensibly,  as  he  had  been  for  some  time  in  reality, 
the  prime  minister,  when  the  duke  of  Newcastle  resigned  his  office 
of  first  lord  of  the  Treasury.  There  might  have  been  surprise  that 
a  Scottish  peer,  of  no  marked  ability,  known  only  as  the  favourite 
of  the  king's  mother,  and  the  chief  officer  of  the  household  of  the 
young  sovereign  when  he  was  prince  of  Wales,  should  become  the 
supreme  director  of  affairs,  and  receive  the  highest  honours,  such 
as  that  of  the  Garter.  But  the  temper  of  the  nation  would  not 
have  been  blown  into  a  flame,  had  not  the  constitutional  guardians 
of  public  opinion  shut  up  the  safety  valves  which  allow  that  mighty 
power  of  a  free  state  harmlessly  to  exert  its  irresistible  influence. 
The  House  of  Commons  quickly  became  unpopular ;  and  that 
unpopularity  left  the  throne  open  to  the  rude  assaults  of  a  head- 
long force,  which  threatened  to  destroy  its  claims  to  respect  and 
obedience.  In  attempting  to  restore  the  influence  of  prerogative 
by  weakening  the  power  of  the  oligarchical  dispensers  of  patronage, 
Bute  endangered  the  success  of  a  scheme  in  some  respects  desira- 
ble, by  failing  to  cultivate  the  support  of  the  people.  Party  con- 
tests had  been  utterly  suspended  during  the  triumphant  administra- 
tion of  Pitt.  When  his  power  was  at  an  end  they  were  renewed  with 
a  virulence  which  it  would  be  difficult  perfectly  to  understand, 


POLICV  OK   THE   FAVOURITE.  •jt 

if  we  did  not  see  in  this  change  a  natural  result  of  a  more  deep- 
seated  change  in  the  social  organization.  From  the  Revolution  of 
1688  to  the  Rebellion  of  1745,  the  contest  was  between  the  adher- 
ents to  the  Bill  of  Rights  and  to  the  Act  of-  Settlement,  and  the 
gradually  decreasing  partizans  of  the  Stuarts  ;  and,  coincident  with 
the  existence  with  these  factions,  a  perpetual  struggle  between 
High  Church  and  Low  Church,  between  Orthodoxy  and  Dissent. 
The  Crown  during  the  whole  period  from  the  Revolution  to  the 
death  of  George  II.,  had,  with  the  exception  of  the  short  ministry 
of  Harley  and  Bolingbroke,  chiefly  looked  for  its  support  to  the 
great  Whig  party,  and  their  successive  phases  of  administration 
the  popular  element  necessarily  preponderated.  There  had  been 
at  many  seasons  a  fierce  struggle  for  supremacy ;  but  at  no  period 
were  the  notions  of  prerogative  advanced  as  the  principle  upon 
which  the  monarchy  was  to  be  upheld.  It  was  not  attempted  to 
be  disguised  that  the  new  minister  of  George  III.,  who  had  sup- 
planted, or  was  endeavouring  to  supplant,  the  old  family  influences, 
had  resolved  to  place  the  power  of  the  Crown  upon  a  border  basis 
— to  bring  back  something  of  the  old  ascendency  of  prerogative. 
He  had  shown  his  disposition  to  contend  against  the  force  of  public 
opinion,  by  displacing  the  popular  minister.  The  portion  of  his- 
tory which  we  have  now  to  trace  has  been  justly  described  as 
"  equally  anomalous  and  disagreeable."  * 

Upon  the  resignation  of  the  duke  of  Newcastle  in  June,  1762, 
— on  the  alleged  plea  of  his  difference  with  the  Cabinet  on  the 
question  of  continuing  a  subsidy  to  the  king  of  Prussia,  but  more 
probably  from  his  perception  that  the  parliamentary  foundation  of 
his  power  was  to  be  cut  from  under  his  feet, — the  earl  of  Bute  left  his 
office  of  Secretary  of  State  to  become  the  head  of  the  Treasury. 
George  Grenville  then  became  Secretary  of  State  ;  and  sir  Francis 
Dashwood  Chancellor  of  the  Exchequer.  But  whatever  were  the 
minor  arrangements,  the  real  power  of  the  governement  was  cen- 
tred in  Bute  ;  and  upon  him  fell  that  storm  of  popular  indignation 
which  Wilkes  and  Churchill  embodied  in  the  bitterest  of  personal 
attacks.  In  June,  1762,  the  first  number  appeared  of  "  The  North 
Briton."  This  paper,  which  afterwards  acquired  such  a  dangerous 
celebrity,  was  set  up  by  John  Wilkes,  with  the  assistance  of  Charles 
Churchill.  It  was  marked  by  no  great  display  of  talent ;  but  it 
was  daring  in  its  personality.  "  The  North  Briton  "  did  not  ob- 
serve the  old  decorum  of  giving  names  by  initials.  The  king  was 
not  softened  into  the  K — ,  nor  was  Bute  pointed  to  as  B — .  The 
minister's  name  was  not  disguised  as  "  The  Jack-boot,"  nor  as  the 

*  Dr.  Arnold — "  Lectures  on  History,"  p.  263. 


72  HISTORY   OF    ENGLAND. 

"  Thane,"  as  the  caricatures  exhibited  him.  More  paltry  than  the 
assaults  upon  the  favourite's  political  character  was  the  attempt  to 
lower  him  in  the  estimation  of  the  English  as  a  Scot.  Wilkes  did 
this  coarsely.  Churchill  with  extraordinary  skill,  in  his  "  Prophecy 
of  Famine,"  which  appeared  in  January  1763,  We  can  read  this 
production  as  we  read  Dryden's  "  Absalom  and  Achitophel,"  utterly 
forgetting  the  partizan  to  admire  the  poet.  Lord  Temple,  the 
friend  of  Wilkes,  deprecated  the  system  pursued  in  "The  North 
Briton  "  of  "  attacking  at  once  the  whole  nation  of  Scotland,  by 
wholesale  and  retail,  in  so  very  invidious  a  manner."  *  He  shrunk 
also  from  having  "  Lord  B.'s  name  at  full  length."  Much  of  the 
odium  that  fell  upon  this  minister  is  to  be  ascribed  rather  to  the 
belief  that  he  was  a  favourite,  than  to  his  actions  as  a  statesman. 
It  was  to  the  suspicious  circumstances  which  made  him  the  ruler 
of  Leicester  House  that  the  people  attributed  the  confidence 
placed  in  him  by  the  young  king.  The  common  parallel  of  the  libel- 
lers was  Mortimer  and  queen  Isabel.  That  a  minion  should  have 
displaced  such  a  minister  as  Pitt,  was  sufficient  to  make  his  name 
execrable  without  any  very  odious  acts  of  power.  His  precipitation 
in  concluding  the  peace  without  obtaining  the  full  advantage  of  the 
war,  would  have  been  quickly  forgotten.  But  his  rash  dismissal  of 
three  of  the  greatest  amongst  the  peers  from  the  Lord-Lieutenancies 
of  their  counties,  for  their  presumption  in  offering  objections  to  the 
conditions  of  the  Peace,  indicated  a  temper  in  which  thinking  men 
saw  something  like  an  attempt  to  go  back  to  arbitrary  power. 
The  dislike  of  Bute  became  so  intense,  that  in  many  places  a  jack- 
boot and  a  petticoat  were  publicly  burnt,  as  types  of  the  favourite 
and  his  patroness.  When  a  Bill  for  laying  a  tax  upon  cider  was 
passed  amidst  great  opposition,  the  popular  clamour  reached  its 
height ;  and  at  last  the  unhappy  minister  was  afraid  to  apear  in  the 
streets  without  the  escort  of  a  gang  of  bruisers.  Suddenly,  on  the 
,8th  of  April,  1763,  lord  Bute  resigned  all  his  official  employments. 
'•It  would  seem,  from  a  correspondence  between  him  and  George 
Grenville,  that  Bute  had  the  sole  power  of  forming  a  new  ministry, 
previous  to  his  resignation.  Upon  offering  the  great  post  of  First 
Lord  of  the  Treasury  to  George  Grenville,  he  made  use  of  the 
phrase  "the  king's  friends,"  in  recommending  Grenville  cordially 
to  take  the  assistance  of  those  who  came  under  this  designation. 
Grenville  became  the  head  of  the  Treasury  and  Chancellor  of 
the  Exchequer;  lord  Egremont  and  lord  Halifax  the  two  Secre- 
taries of  State.  Upon  the  retirement  of  Bute,  Fox  was  raised 
to  the  peerage  as  lord  Holland.  Although  he  ceased  to  take  any 

*  "  Grenville  Papers,"  vol.  i.  p.  457. 


NORTH   BRITION,    NO.    45.  73 

part  in  public  affairs,  he  clung  to  the  great  sinecure  of  his  office  of 
Paymaster  ;  and  had  the  gratification  of  still  receiving  those  vast 
irregular  emoluments  which  Pitt  despised.  The  voice  of  public 
execration  might  scarcely  reach  him  amidst  the  fantastic  buildings 
which  he  raised  at  Kingsgate,  near  Margate  ;  where,  though 

"  Old,  and  abandon'd  by  eaeh  venal  friend,"  * 

he  might  hug  himself  in  the  satisfaction  that  he  had  done  as  much 
as  any  man  in  his  time  to  play  the  great  game  of  politics  solely 
with  reference  to  his  own  private  advantage  ;  and  had  won  by  his 
talents  and  perseverance  the  real  prize  of  statesmanship,  whilst 
his  eloquent  rival  had  only  the  barren  fame. 

On  the  ipth  of  April,  eleven  days  after  the  resignation  of  lord 
Bute,  the  king  closed  the  session  of  Parliament.  His  majesty  dwelt 
upon  the  conditions  of  the  definitive  treaty  of  peace,  as  advanta- 
geous to  his  own  subjects  ;  and  he  then  added,  "  My  expectations 
have  been  fully  answered,  by  the  happy  effects  Which  the  several 
allies  of  my  crown  have  derived  from  this  salutary  measure.  The 
powers  at  war  with  my  good  brother,  the  king  of  Prussia,  have 
been  induced  to  agree  to  such  terms  of  accommodation  as  that  great 
prince  has  approved  ;  and  the  success  which  has  attended  my 
negotiation  has  necessarily,  and  immediately,  diffused  the  blessing 
of  peace  through  every  part  of  Europe."  On  the  23rd  of  April 
came  out  No.  45  of  "  The  North  Briton,"  in  which  the  comment  of 
Wilkes  upon  this  passage  was  considered  by  some,  to  use  Walpole's 
expression,  as  giving  "a  flat  lie  to  the  king  himself."  Wilkes  used 
these  words  :  "  The  infamous  fallacy  of  this  whole  sentence  is 
apparent  to  all  mankind  ;  for  it  is  known  that  the  king  of  Prussia 
did  not  barely  approve,  but  absolutely  dictated  as  conqueror,  every 
article  of  the  terms  of  peace.  No  advantage  of  any  kind  has 
accrued  to  that  magnanimous  prince  from  our  negotiation ;  but  he 
was  basely  deserted  by  the  Scottish  Prime  Minister  of  England." 
In  this  famous  "North  Briton"  Wilkes  cautiously  abstained  from 
giving  the  lie  to  the  king  himself.  It  was,  he  said,  "  the  minister's 
speech," — an  imposition  as  great  upon  the  sovereign,  as  upon  the 
nation  :  the  sanction  of  the  king's  name  was  given  to  the  most  un- 
justifiable public  doctrines.  The  proceedings  of  the  Government 
against  Wilkes  not  only  made  the  witty  profligate  the  most  famous 
man  in  England ;  but  rendered  him  the  centre  of  a  constitutional 
resistance  to  the  Prerogative  of  the  Crown  and  the  Privilege  of 
Parliament  which  mixed  up  as  it  was  with  the  cause  of  a  man  in 
many  respects  worthless,  eventually  placed  the  liberties  of  the  peo- 

*  Gray — "  Impromptu  on  Kingsgate." 


74  HISTORY   OF   ENGLAND. 

pie  upon  a  firmer  foundation  of  legal  right  than  had  previously  been 
acknowledged.  On  the  3Oth  of  April  a  "  General  Warrant  "  was 
issued  against  the  authors,  printers,  and  publishers  of  a  seditious 
and  treasonable  paper  entitled  "  The  North  Briton,"  No.  45,  &c. 
By  a  "General  Warrant  "  is  understood  an  authority  to  apprehend 
any  person  supposed  to  be  implicated  in  a  particular  charge.  Balfe, 
the  printer,  and  Kearsley,  the  publisher,  were  taken  at  once.  The 
king's  messengers  entered  the  house  of  Wilkes  at  midnight  on  the 
29th,  but  he  protested  against  their  intrusion  at  such  an  hour;  and 
they  quitted  him,  to  return  in  the  morning.  He  was  carried  before 
the  two  Secretaries  of  State,  and  was  by  them  committed  to  the 
Tower  ;  his  papers  being  seized  and  examined.  At  first  he  was 
closely  confined,  and  was  debarred  all  intercourse  with  his  friends, 
or  the  use  of  pen  and  paper.  When  these  severe  restrictions  were 
laid  aside,  he  was  visited  by  earl  Temple  and  the  duke  of  Grafton. 
On  the  3rd  of  May,  he  was  brought  to  the  Court  of  Common  Pleas, 
upon  a  writ  of  habeas  corpus  granted  by  sir  Charles  Pratt,  the 
Lord  Chief  Justice.  Serjeant  Glynn  argued  the  case,  and  Wilkes 
spoke  himself  with  that  boldness  approaching  to  effrontery,  which 
was  one  of  his  characteristics.  The  court  postponed  its  decision 
till  the  6th.  The  crown  lawyers  had  contrived  not  to  have  the 
question  then  raised  of  the  legality  of  a  General  Warrant ;  but  the 
Chief  Justice,  speaking  in  the  name  of  himself  and  his  fellow 
judges,  determined  that  his  privilege  as  a  member  of  parliament 
protected  Wilkes  from  arrest.  That  privilege,  Pratt  said,  held 
good  in  all  cases  except  treason,  felony,  and  an  actual  breach  of 
the  peace.  A  libel  was  not  a  breach  of  the  peace,  but  only  tended 
to  such  breach.  "  Let  Mr.  Wilkes  be  discharged  from  his  im- 
prisonment." The  next  day  earl  Temple  was  dismissed  from  the 
Lord-Lieutenancy  of  Buckinghamshire,  and  his  name  was  struck 
off  the  list  of  Privy  Councillors.  Wilkes  was  deprived  of  his  com- 
mission as  a  colonel  of  the  Buckinghamshire  militia.  For  seven 
years  did  the  battle  go  on — a  battle  in  which  every  supposed  vic- 
tory of  the  Government  was  a  real  defeat.  Of  this  extraordinary 
contest,  in  its  various  aspects,  we  shall  have  to  take  up  the  nar- 
rative from  time-to  time  as  we  proceed.  At  every  step  it  will  be 
impossible  not  to  see  the  weakness  and  folly  of  the  Ministry  and 
the  Parliament ;  and,  however  we  may  despise  the  reckless  audacity 
of  the  demagogue  over  whom  public  opinion  threw  its  shield,  we 
cannot  but  rejoice  that  the  eternal  principles  of  justice  were  as- 
serted from  the  judgment  seat,  and  that  the  majesty  of  the  law  was 
not  sullied  by  any  such  subserviency  to  power  as  had  disgraced 
earlier  periods  of  our  history. 


NEGOTIATION    FOR   MR.    PITT'S   RETURN   TO   POWER.        75 

The  interval  between  the  proceedings  against  Wilkes  and  the 
meeting  of  Parliament  in  November,  was  marked  by  an  attempt  to 
call  back  Mr.  Pitt  to  the  direction  of  affairs.  George  Grenville  had 
been  tried  by  Bute,  and  had  not  given  satisfaction.  A  dry,  formal 
man,  with  very  precise  notions  of  the  mode  of  conducting  public 
business,  he  could  not  brook  the  interference  of  the  ex-minister 
who  had  given  him  his  office.  Bute  was  close  at  the  royal  ear  to 
give  advice  to  the  young  sovereign,  in  the  capacity  of  "  the  king's 
friend."  Lord  Egremont,  one  of  the  Secretaries  of  State,  died  sud- 
denly of  apoplexy.  Bute,  who,  when  he  got  rid  of  Pitt,  had  said 
that  the  king  would  never  suffer  those  ministers  of  the  late  reign, 
who  had  attempted  to  fetter  him,  to  come  again  into  his  service, 
now  advised  his  majesty  to  give  his  confidence  to  the  man  whom  he 
used  contemptuously  to  term  "the  people's  darling."  On  the  27th 
of  August,  the  well-known  sedan-chair  of  Pitt  (built  in  a  singular 
fashion  to  accommodate  his  gouty  foot)  was  moving  through  the  Park 
to  Buckingham  House,  the  king  having  commanded  his  attendance. 
The  king  was  gracious  ;  the  great  commoner  authoritative  and  firm. 
Pitt  maintained  that  it  would  be  for  his  majesty's  interest  to  restore 
to  his  confidence  those  steady  friends  of  the  House  of  Hanover 
who  had  been  driven  from  his  counsels.  The  king,  according  to 
Pitt's  report  to  lord  Hardwicke,  appeared  to  be  convinced  by  his 
arguments,  and  desired  to  see  him  again  on  the  following  Monday, 
the  first  interview  being  on  Saturday.  In  the  meantime  Bute  and 
Grenville  had  been  with  his  majesty  ;  and  when  Pitt  had  another 
audience,  the  king  continued  to  discuss  his  proposals,  as  if  he  had 
not  intimated  to  Grenville  that  he  was  to  continue  his  minister ; 
but  finally  said,  "  I  see  this  won't  do."  Lord  Shelburne  congratu- 
lated Pitt "  personally  and  very  sincerely  on  a  negotiation  being  at  an 
end,  which  carried  through  the  whole  of  it  such  shocking  marks  of 
insincerity."  The  only  result  of  this  negotiation  was,  that  it  be- 
came manifest  that  Bute  still  influenced  public  affairs.  Grenville 
had  been  affronted  by  the  course  which  had  been  taken  in  endeav- 
ouring to  supersede  him  ;  and  he  only  consented  to  remain  in  office 
upon  the  condition  that  there  should  be  no  "  secret  influence." 
The  duke  of  Bedford  became  President  of  the  Council,  and  lord 
Sandwich  Secretary  of  State. 

It  is  impossible  to  look  upon  this  extraordinary  proceeding  on 
the  part  of  George  III.  without  in  some  degree  regarding  it  as  a 
manifestation  of  his  peculiar  character.  He  had  been  brought  up 
with  certain  notions,  and  in  many  respects  very  proper  notions,  of 
his  own  power  and  prerogative.  As  far  as  he  was  acquainted  with 
the  history  of  his  country,  and  we  have  no  right  to  assume  that  he 


76  HISTORY   OF    ENGLAND. 

was  ignorant  of  it,  he  had  seen  no  sovereign  since  the  time  of 
William  III.  who  took  a  direct  and  active  part  in  the  administra- 
tion of  public  affairs.  So  far  from  indulging  the  indolence  which 
lord  Waldegrave  thought  was  constitutional,  he  exhibited  an  amaz- 
ing anxiety  to  suggest,  to  control,  to  dictate,  in  every  operation  of 
government.  He  was  impatient  under  the  triumphant  administra- 
tion of  Pitt,  because  the  personal  supremacy  of  the  minister  over- 
shadowed the  authority  of  the  king.  It  is  possible  that  he  was 
wearied  with  the  tutelage  of  Bute,  when  he  thought  it  possible  to 
call  back  the  greatest  man  in  his  kingdom  to  be  the  instrument  of 
his  will.  Pitt's  firm  bearing,  in  that  memorable  audience  of  the 
27th  of  August,  satisfied  him  that  he  could  not  put  his  government 
into  the  hands  of  a  responsible  minister  who  proposed  to  act  as  the 
representative  of  a  great  party.  When  Grenville  saw  the  king  on 
the  Sunday  evening  after  his  first  interview  with  Pitt,  he  found  him 
"  in  the  greatest  agitation  " — the  terms,  his  majesty  said,  which 
Pitt  had  demanded  were  "too  hard."  The  prevailing  desire  of 
George  III.  to  have  a  ministry  moulded  to  his  own  views  was  a 
constant  struggle  against  the  shackles  imposed  upon  a  king  by  the 
very  conditions  of  a  limited  monarchy.  He  had  force  of  character 
enough  to  be  determined  that  he  should  be  consulted,  and  if  possi- 
ble obeyed,  in  the  smaller  as  well  as  in  the  greater  affairs  of  state  ; 
but  he  had  not  sufficient  strength  of  understanding  to  know  how 
much  to  leave  to  the  responsibility  of  his  servants — how  far  he 
could  safely  direct,  and  at  what  point  he  could  best  defer  to  the 
opinions  of  those  to  whom  he  purported  to  have  given  his  confi- 
dence. Through  this  tendency  to  govern  of  himself  he  weakened 
his  own  real  power  and  influence.  Lord  Brougham  has  truly  said, 
"  It  is  not  to  be  denied  that  George  III.  sought  to  rule  too  much ; 
it  is  not  maintained  that  he  had  a  right  to  be  perpetually  sacrificing 
all  other  considerations  to  the  preservation  or  extension  of  his  pre- 
rogative. But  that  he  only  discharged  the  duties  of  his  station  by 
thinking  for  himself,  acting  according  to  his  conscientious  opinion, 
and  using  his  influence  for  giving  those  opinions  effect,  cannot  be 
denied."  *  But  it  was  a  lamentable  circumstance  of  this  consti- 
tution and  not  unreasonable  rule  of  conduct,  that  the  king  per- 
sonally did  many  harsh  acts  to  mark  his  resentment  of  those  who 
differed  from  him ;  that  though  to  some  of  his  ministers  he  was  a 
confiding  and  even  affectionate  master,  to  others  he  was  wayward 
and  distrustful ;  that  during  the  first  nine  years  of  his  reign  there 
were  six  successive  administrations,  and  that,  to  use  the  words  of 
Burke,  "the  question  at  last  was  not,  who  could  do  the  public  bus- 

*  "  Statesmen  of  the  time  of  George  III.,"  vol.  i.  p.  14. 


THE   WILKITE   AGITATION.  77 

iness  best,  but  who  would  undertake  to  do  it  at  all."  *  In  Burke's 
parliamentary  language,  it  was  "  the.  arbitrary  fiat  of  an  all-direct- 
ing favourite  "  that  prevented  men  of  talents  and  integrity  accept- 
ing employments  where  they  could  not  exercise  their  judgment  or 
their  honesty.  But  it  is  now  well  known  that  the  influence  of  lord 
Bute  had  wholly  come  to  an  end  after  a  few  years  ;  and  we  cannot 
therefore  shut  our  eyes  to  the  fact  that  the  king,  however  right  in 
his  determination  not  to  be  a  cypher  in  the  State,  had  not  the 
discretion  to  prevent  that  desire  becoming  a  source  of  national 
disunion. 

The  seven  years  of  Wilkite  agitation  could  not  have  been  a 
pleasant  epoch  in  the  life  of  any  friend  of  rational  liberty,  and  well- 
balanced  authority.  The  principles  of  constitutional  freedom  were 
mixed  up  with  the  quarrel  of  a  profligate  demagogue,  and  the  out- 
rages of  an  unthinking  multitude.  Sober  men  naturally  turned 
from  the  support  of  such  a  cause.  On  the  other  hand,  the  course 
of  the  government  was  so  paltry,  so  passionate,  so  vindictive,  so 
obstinate,  that  the  most  strenuous  loyalty  could  scarcely  give  an 
honest  assistance  to  measures  which  transformed  a  nation's  willing 
obedience  into  a  dull  submission  to  the  powers  that  be.  During 
this  period  of  hateful  controversy,  there  was  a  perpetual  excitement 
of  libels  and  mobs  ;  the  decisions  of  the  law  coming  in  conflict 
with  the  desires  of  the  Crown ;  the  will  of  the  people  opposed  to 
the  votes  of  the  Parliament.  The  bystanders  looked  with  surprise 
and  alarm  upon  this  extraordinary  game,  in  which  statesmen  seemed 
to  be  puppets  moved  by  some  machinery,  rather  than  by  their  own 
natural  impulses.  Time  has  partially  lifted  up  the  curtain,  and  we 
see  the  hands  that  pulled  the  strings. 

John  Wilkes,  although  filling  an  influential  position — a  Bucking- 
hamshire magistrate ;  a  bon  vivant  in  what  was  called  the  best  so- 
ciety— was  a  needy  man,  and  a  little  able  of  himself  to  carry  on  the 
great  legal  contest  in  which  he  became  engaged.  His  chief  friend 
was  earl  Temple,  wlio  had  left  office  with  Pitt,  and  bore  no  good 
will  to  the  influence  which  had  thrust  him  and  his  more  eminent 
brother-in-law  from  high  employment.  His  connexion  with  Wilkes 
was  not  entirely  political ;  for  Wilkes  was  a  colonel  in  lord  Temple's 
militia  regiment.  But  his  open  support  of  the  writer  of  the 
"  North  Briton  "  indicated  pretty  clearly  that  Temple  was  in  some 
degree  identified  with  Wilkes  ;  and  this  leU  to  the  immediate  re- 
venge of  the  court,  in  his  dismissal  from  the  Lord-Lieutenancy  of 
Buckinghamshire.  From  that  time  the  correspondence  of  WiJkes 
and  the  lord  of  Stowe  on  the  subject  of  the  libellous  paper,  and 

*  "  Parliamentary  History,"  vol.  xvit  col.  879. 


7  8  HISTORY  OF   ENGLAND. 

the  prosecutions  connected  with  it,  are  very  frequent.  The  patri- 
otic effusions  of  Wilkes  are  generally  accompanied  with  requests 
for  the  loan  of  money.  "  I  have  this  cause  at  heart,  and  I  feel  the 
spirit  of  Hampden  in  it,  but  I  have  not  his  fortune  ....  .£500  I 
must  contrive  to  get,  and,  after  your  lordship's  goodness,  I  even 
blush  to  mention  it."  *  Wilkes  adds,  "  I  believe  the  causes  will  in 
time  pay  themselves."  At  this  time  one  of  the  journeymen  printers 
who  had  been  arrested  under  the  General  Warrant  had  obtained  a 
verdict  against  the  Secretary  of  State,  with  three  hundred  pounds 
damages,  for  false  imprisonment.  Chief  Justice  Pratt  had  sum- 
moned up  decidedly  for  the  journeyman  printer.  Other  "causes  " 
of  the  same  character  were  depending ;  and  Temple  gives  Wilkes 
advice  as  to  the  course  of  legal  proceedings  in  "  the  business  of 
the  devils,  your  friends."  f  The  "  North  Briton  "  was  now  printed 
at  a  private  press  in  Wilkes's  own  house  in  Great  George  Street ; 
where  other  productions  were  printed,  one  of  which  became  the 
object  of  a  movement  on  the  part  of  the  Government,  as  unwise 
as  the  proceedings  under  the  General  Warrant. 

Whilst  an  inevitable  parliamentary  battle  in  the  next  Session 
was  in  preparation,  the  town  was  amused  by  lampoons  and  carica- 
tures on  both  sides  of  this  stirring  question.  Hogarth  had  been 
attacked  by  Wilkes  in  an  early  number  of  the  "  North  Briton,"  for 
Hogarth  had  published  a  caricature  called  "  The  Times,"  of  which 
Pitt  was  the  subject.  The  pictorial  satirist  took  his  revenge  of 
the  "North  Briton"  by  issuing  a  portrait,  scarcely  a  caricature, 
which  he  had  sketched  when  Wilkes  was  brought  before  Chief 
Justice  Pratt.  Churchill  came  to  the  aid  of  his  friend,  and  pub- 
lished his  bitter  "Epistle  to  William  Hogarth."  The  painter  was 
not  to  be  put  down,  even  by  Churchill's  compliment  to  his  genius 
sweetening  the  assaults  upon  "  the  Man."  He  published  his  print 
of  "  The  Bruiser,  C.  Churchill,  once  the  reverend " — the  poet's 
face  moulded  into  that  of  a  bear,  with  a  pot  of  porter  in  one  hand, 
and  club  in  the  other.  Pitiful  were  these  effusions  of  personal 
spite.  More  pitiful  even  was  the  revenge  against  Wilkes  that  was 
being  concocted  in  the  highest  places.  On  the  fth  of  November, 
the  earl  of  Sandwich  writes  to  Mr.  Grenville,  to  inform  him  of 
conferences  between  his  lordship,  the  Lord  Chancellor,  and  bishop 
Warburton,  on  the  subject  of  his  proposal  to  bring  before  the 
House  of  Lords  a  cornplaint  against  Wilkes  as  the  author  of  a 
blasphemous  and  impious  work ;  and  he  tells  Grenville,  "  I  mean 
to  carry  the  affair  into  execution  ;  so  that  I  think  we  have  now  no- 
thing to  do  but  to  settle  the  mode  of  bringing  it  on."  J  Amongst 

*  "  Grenville  Papers,"  vol.  ii.  p.  75 — Wilkes  to  Temple,  July  9,  1763. 

*  Ibid.,  p.  78.  %  Ibid.,\>-  154- 


WILKES   TO   BE   PROSECUTED.  79 

the  profligate  nobles  of  that  age,  few  had  obtained  a  more  unen- 
viable reputation  than  lord  Sandwich.  A  boon  companion  of 
Wilkes  himself,  we  have  evidence  that  at  the  very  time  at  which  he 
was  dining  with  him  at  a  convivial  weekly  club,  Sandwich  was  em- 
ploying spies  to  watch  and  report  all  Wilkes 's  daily  movements.  * 
This  might  be  proper  official  caution  ;  but  no  official  necessity 
could  excuse  the  baseness  of  bribing  a  printer  to  purloin  the  proof- 
sheets  of  a  poem  of  which  Wilkes  had  printed  twelve  copies  at 
his  press,  for  private  distribution.  On  the  I5th  of  November,  the 
Parliament  was  opened.  In  the  House  of  Lords,  before  the  speech 
from  the  throne  was  taken  into  consideration,  lord  Sandwich  made 
a  complaint  of  a  printed  paper  entitled  "  An  Essay  on  Woman." 
with  notes  to  which  the  name  of  Dr.  Warburton  was  affixed  ;  and 
of  another  printed  paper  entitled  "  The  Veni  Creator  paraphrased." 
The  "  holy  Secretary,"  as  Walpole  calls  him,  read  many  of  the 
atrocious  passages,  to  the  great  disgust  of  all  decent  peers  ;  and 
the  amazement  of  some  who  saw  the  earl  of  Sandwich  employed 
in  the  vindication  of  religion  and  morality,  f  The  compositor 
employed  by  Wilkes  in  his  own  house,  receiving  there  255.  a  week, 
and  bed  and  board,  was  examined  ;  and  he  produced  some  proof- 
sheets,  with  corrections  in  the  handwriting  of  Wilkes,  to  establish 
the  authorship.  The  House  then  resolved  to  address  his  majesty 
to  desire  that  he  would  give  immediate  orders  for  the  prosecution 
of  the  author  or  authors  of  this  scandalous  and  impious  libel.  The 
whole  force  of  the  State,  of  Kings,  Lords,  and  Commons  was  ar- 
rayed against  one  demagogue.  In  the  Lower  House,  after  a  series 
of  debates,  it  was  resolved  that  the  "  North  Briton,"  No.  45,  was 
a  false,  scandalous,  and  seditious  libel,  and  that  it  should  be  burnt 
by  the  common  hangman.  A  riot  took  place  when  this  resolution 
was  carried  into  effect.  Meanwhile,  in  consequence  of  Mr.  Martin, 
on  the  first  night  of  the  Session,  having  termed  the  writer  of  the 
"  North  Briton  "  a  cowardly,  malignant,  and  infamous  scoundrel, 
Wilkes  had  challenged  him ;  and  in  a  duel  the  next  day  was  dan- 
gerously wounded.  The  measures  contemplated  against  him  were 
therefore  delayed.  His  position  appearing  very  perilous  he  sought 
safety  in  France  before  his  wound  was  healed.  On  the  2Oth  of 
January  he  was  expelled  the  House  of  Commons. 

The  question  of  the  legality  of  a  General  Warrant  had  been 
formally  decided  in  an  action  tried  before  Chief  Justice  Pratt,  on 
the  loth  of  December,  1763.  At  the  time  of  the  arrest  of  Wilkes, 

*  See  their  Report  to  the  Secretaries  of    State;  October  31  to  November  13,  in 
"  Grenville  Papers,"  vol.  ii.  p.  155. 
t  Sec  Chesterfield's  Letters. 


8o  HISTORY   OF    ENGLAND. 

lord  Halifax  and  lord  Egremont  were  the  two  Secretaries  of  State, 
Egremont  died  ;  and  the  proceedings  which  Wilkins  had  instituted 
against  him  were  necessarily  abated.  Halifax,  by  a  series  of  legal 
evasions,  prevented  the  action  against  himself  being  tried.  But 
the  action  for  false  imprisonment  against  Mr.  Wood,  the  Under 
Secretary  of  State,  resulted  in  a  verdict  against  him  by  a  special 
jury,  with  damages  of  a  thousand  pounds.  The  opinion  of  the 
Chief  Justice  was  now  given  in  the  most  unequivocal  words. 
"  There  is  no  authority  in  our  law-books  that  mentions  this  kind  of 
warrants  ;  but  in  express  terms  condemns  this.  Upon  the  matur- 
est  consideration  I  am  bold  to  say,  this  warrant  is  illegal."  This 
judgment  was  subsequently  affirmed  by  lord  Mansfield  upon  the 
arguments  on  a  Bill  of  Exceptions.*  But  the  legality  of  General 
Warrants  formed  the  subject  of  a  series  of  debates  in  the  House 
of  Commons,  conducted  with  all  the  energy  that  is  naturally  elicited 
by  great  constitutional  questions.  The  House,  on  the  I3th  of 
February,  examined  witnesses  and  debated  this  question  for  eleven 
hours  ;  and  the  next  day  for  seventeen  hours.  The  debate  was 
renewed  three  days  after,  and  then  the  ministerial  majority  was 
only  fourteen.  Walpole  gives  a  ludicrous  account  of  the  appear- 
ance of  the  House  on  this  occasion:  "You  would  have  almost 

laughed  to  see  the  spectres  produced  on  both  sides Votes 

were  brought  down  in  flannels  and  blankets  till  the  floor  of  the 
House  looked  like  the  pool  of  Bethesda."  f  There  was  no  record 
of  the  debate  on  this  occasion  except  Walpole's  letter,  until  the 
publication  of  his  "  Memoirs  of  George  III. ;"  where  a  summary  is 
given  of  the  arguments  of  many  speakers.  The  ministry  went 
upon  precedents  for  their  defence,  and  alluded  to  the  issue  of  such 
warrants  during  the  administration  of  Mr.  Pitt.  The  great  orator 
boldly  said  that  he  knew  them  to  be  illegal  when  he  issued  them. 
He  preferred  the  general  safety  in  a  time  of  danger  to  any  per- 
sonal consideration.  He  did  an  extraordinary  act  at  any  risk,  even 
of  his  head,  to  procure  the  arrest  of  a  suspicious  foreigner,  who 
was  concealed  at  different  times  in  different  houses.  "  What  was 
there  in  a  libel  so  heinous  and  terrible  as  to  require  this  formidable 
instrument?"  Their  honest  convictions  made  some  of  the  ordi- 
nary supporters  of  the  government  vote  with  the  minority  on  this 
question  of  General  Warrants.  It  is  pitiable  to  trace  the  persever- 
ing desire  of  the  king  to  carry  out  what  he  deemed  a  proper  pun- 

*  The  received  legal  doctrine  is  thus  laid  down  by  Blackstone  :  "  A  warrant  to  appre- 
hend all  persons,  guilty  of  a  crime  therein  specified,  is  no  legal  warrant  ;  for  the  point 
upon  which  its  authority  rests-is  a  fact  to  be  decided  on  a  subsequent  trial,  namely, 
whether  the  person  apprehended  thereupon  be  really  guilty  or  not." — Kerr's  edit.,  voL 
iv.  p.  34»,  t  Letter  to  Lord  Hertford. 


OFFICERS   DISMISSED    FOR   VOTES    IN    PARLIAMENT.          8 1 

ishment  for  their  offence.  On  the  first  day  of  the  Session,  when 
the  question  of  parliamentary  privilege  was  discussed,  General 
Conway,  the  Colonel  of  a  Regiment,  voted  in  the  minority.  The 
king  immediately  wrote  to  Grenville,  "  General  Conway's  conduct 
is  amazing.  I  am  hurt  for  lord  Hertford  [brother  of  Conway,  and 
ambassador  at  Paris],  I  shall  propose  to  Mr.  Grenville  the  dis- 
missing instantly,  for  in  this  question  I  am  personally  concerned."  * 
On  the  25th  his  majesty  urged  the  dismission  of  Conway  and  oth- 
ers ;  and  that  it  should  be  given  out  "  that  the  next  would  have  the 
same  fate  if  they  do  not  amend  their  conduct."  f  Grenville's  Diary 
shows  that  he  repeatedly  advised  the  king  to  defer  this  resolution 
with  regard  to  Conway ;  although  he  supported  the  king  in  his 
determination  to  take  this  course  of  exhibiting  his  power.  On  the 
1 8th  of  February,  after  the  great  debate  upon  General  Warrants, 
the  king  wrote  to  Grenville,  "  firmness  and  resolution  must  now  be 
shown,  and  no  one's  friend  saved  who  has  dared  to  fly  off ;  this 
alone  can  restore  order,  and  save  this  country  from  anarchy,  by 
dismissing.  ...  I  am  not  to  be  neglected  unpunished."  J  In 
April,  Conway  was  dismissed  from  his  regiment  and  from  his 
office.  The  same  mode  of  resentment  was  adopted  in  the  case  of 
lord  Shelburne,  colonel  Barre,  and  general  A'court,  as  well  as  to- 
wards persons  holding  civil  offices.  The  disposition  of  George  III. 
to  look  at  public  measures  as  personal  questions  was  one  cause  of 
many  serious  calamities  of  his  reign.  He  told  Grenville  on  the 
I4th  of  December  that  he  took  no  notice  of  lord  Shelburne  at  the 
levee;  "but  spoke  to  two  people  on  each  side  of  him;  which,  he 
thought,  was  the  treatment  he  deserved,  for  having  broke  his  word 
and  honour  with  him,  having  pledged  both  upon  not  going  into 
opposition,  and  then  taking  the  first  opportunity  to  oppose  a  meas- 
ure which  personally  regarded  the  king."  §  The  dismissal  of  Con-> 
way  for  a  conscientious  vote  in  Parliament, — a  man  who  had  dis- 
tinguished himself  in  Germany ;  was  remarkable  for  his  fairness, 
and  his  aversion  to  faction ;  and  was  a  general  supporter  of  the 
government — is  truly  described  as  a  step  whose  boldness  was  al- 
most unprecedented.  Sir  Robert  Walpole  had  dismissed  three 
military  men  from  their  employments,  the  famous  "  cornet  of  horse  " 
among  the  number;  but  they  had  incurred  the  penalty  "by  a  per- 
sonal, violent,  and  constant  opposition."  ||  The  dismissal  of  Con- 
way  and  others,  for  their  parliamentary  conduct,  excited  consider- 
able alarm  as  to  the  arbitrary  tendencies  of  the  Court ;  and  it  did 

*  "  Grenville  Papers,"  vol.  ii.  p.  162.  t  Ibid.,  p.  166. 

t  Ibid.,  p.  267.  §  Ibid.,  p.  238 — Diary  of  Grenrille. 

;i  Walpole — "George  III.,"  vol.  i.  p.  402. 

VOL.  VI.— 6 


82  HISTORY   OF   ENGLAND. 

much  to  establish  that  unpopularity  which  a  king,  who  had  many 
qualities  to  recommend  him  to  the  affection  of  his  people,  was  by 
his  own  manifestations  of  self-will  bringing  down  upon  his  head. 
The  question  of  the  proceedings  against  Wilkes  became  merged 
in  higher  questions.  The  demagogue  was  prosecuted  for  libels; 
was  found  guilty;  and  was  outlawed  on  the  1st  of  November  for 
non-appearance  to  receive  sentence.  But  he  was  now  considered 
a  persecuted  man.  When  the  Common  Council  voted  thanks  to 
Chief  Justice  Pratt  for  his  judgment  on  the  question  of  General 
Warrants,  and  requested  him  to  sit  for  his  picture  to  be  placed  in 
Guildhall,  they  expressed  the  prevailing  opinion  even  of  temperate 
politicians.  The  ministry  had  the  sense  of  the  nation  against  them. 
The  king  was  not  shielded  by  ministerial  responsibility,  for  he  had 
unwisely  exhibited  that  individual  sensitiveness — those  resentments 
and  animosities — which  are  scarcely  compatible  with  the  functions 
of  a  constitutional  sovereign. 

We  shall  see,  in  a  few  years,  John  Wilkes,  and  all  the  chorus 
of  his  political  drama,  passing  away,  "  like  an  insubstantial  pageant 
faded."  Another  scene  was  to  be  opened,  which,  devoid  of  in- 
terest as  it  might  at  first  appear,  was  to  be  developed  in  a  series  of 
long  continued  action  which  involved  not  only  the  interests  of 
England,  but  eventually  the  destinies  of  the  Anglo-Saxon  family, 
and  incidentally  of  all  the  human  race.  The  triumphant  adminis- 
tration of  Mr.  Pitt  had  given  a  firmness  and  compactness  to  the 
British  empire  in  North  America,  which  appeared  to  promise  a 
long  continuance  .of  prosperity  to  the  mother-country  and  her 
colonies.  These  colonies  were  founded  upon  principles  of  freedom 
and  toleration,  by  a  race  nurtured  in  those  principles,  and,  in  some 
cases,  seeking  for  a  happier  field  for  their  establishment  than  they 
could  find  under  a  temporary  suspension  of  the  old  English  right 
to  be  well  governed.  The  colonial  Assemblies,  or  Parliaments, 
of  the  thirteen  provinces  of  North  America,  elected  by  the  people, 
trained  men  of  industry  and  ability  to  the  consideration  of  ques- 
tions of  public  policy  and  local  administration.  Thus,  whatever 
might  be  the  authority  and  influence  of  the  Governor  of  each  State 
appointed  by  the  Crown,  there  was  always  an  energy  and  freedom 
in  their  discussions  which  called  out  those  qualities  of  good  sense, 
and  even  of  eloquence,  which  are  fostered,  more  or  less,  by  all  rep- 
resentative institutions.  From  these  Assemblies  complaints  often 
arose  against  the  commercial  policy  of  the  mother-country;  and 
especially  after  the  peace  of  1763,  when  the  attempt  to  carry  out 
our  Navigation  Laws  by  a  rigid  prohibition  of  the  contraband  trade 
of  the  American  with  the  Spanish  colonies  produced  the  most  seri- 


GRENVILLE'S  RESOLUTIONS.  83 

ous  dissatisfaction.  The  trade  between  Great  Britain  and  her 
colonies  had  been  always  based  upon  principles  wholly  opposite  to 
those  of  commercial  freedom.  The  Englishman  was  forbidden  to 
smoke  any  other  than  Virginian-grown  tobacco,  and  the  Virginian 
could  wear  no  other  coat  than  one  of  English-made  cloth.  It  was 
an  age  of  regulation  and  balance  in  small  matters  as  well  as  in 
great — in  commerce  as  in  war.  No  particular  injury  was  contem- 
plated towards  the  colonists  in  the  trade  regulations  ;  although  the 
monopoly  of  the  English  merchants  was  regarded  as  the  supreme 
advantage  of  colonial  possessions.  From  very  insignificant  be- 
ginnings, the  North  American  provinces  had  become  great  and 
prosperous,  and  contained  a  population  somewhat  exceeding  two 
millions.  The  State  regarded  these  colonists  as  a  happy  family  of 
good  children,  to  be  kept  in  order  by  that  paternal  authority  which 
knew  best  what  was  for  their  advantage.  It  was  not  a  very  harsh 
authority,  although  its  exercise  was  unwise  in  its  persistence.  If 
it  vexed  them  with  restrictions,  it  soothed  them  with  privileges. 
But  the  privileges  were  thought  inadequate  to  the  restrictions.  At 
last  the  parent  took  up  the  fancy  of  compelling  the  children  to  pay 
something  in  acknowledgment  of  the  heavy  cost  of  past  protection, 
and  as  a  contribution  towards  the  expense  of  that  protection  in 
future.  A  Stamp  Act  to  raise  sixty  thousand  pounds  produced  a 
war  that  cost  a  hundred  millions. 

"  What  mighty  contests  rise  from  trivial  things." 

On  the  loth  of  March,  1764,  Mr.  Grenville  moved  in  the  Com- 
mons a  series  of  Resolutions,  for  imposing  small  duties  on  certain 
•articles  of  American  commerce  ;  to  "  be  paid  into  the  receipt  of 
his  majesty's  exchequer,  and  there  reserved,  to  be  from  time  to 
time  disposed  of  by  Parliament,  towards  defraying  the  necessary 
expenses  of  defending,  protecting,  and  securing  the  British  col- 
onies and  plantations  in  America."  Following  this  resolution  for 
the  appropriation  of  the  produce  of  duties  upon  the  foreign  trade 
of  the  American  colonies,  came  the  I4th  of  the  series,  in  these 
words  :  "  That  towards  further  defraying  the  said  expenses,  it  may 
be  proper  to  charge  certain  Stamp  Duties  in  the  said  colonies  and 
plantations."*  The  notion  of  imposing  Stamp  Duties  on  the  col- 
onists was  considered  to  have  originated  with  Mr.  Jenkinson,  the 
Secretary  of  the  Treasury.  But  there  was  found  amongst  Mr. 
Grenville's  papers  a  letter  to  him  from  one  Henry  M'Culloh,  dated 
July  5,  1763,  in  which  he  says,  that  a  Stamp  Duty  on  vellum  and 
paper  in  America  would  amount  to  upwards  of  sixty  thousand 

*  "  Parliamentary  History,"  vol-  xv.  col.  1427. 


84  HISTORY   OF    ENGLAND 

pounds  sterling  per  annum.*  Mr.  Jenkinson  writes  to  the  Minister 
in  July,  1764,  to  urge  him  forward  with  the  Stamp  Act,  which  had 
been  postponed  in  the  previous  Session  to  obtain  "further  in- 
formation on  that  subject."  On  the  loth  of  January,  1765,  the 
Parliament  met.  The  question  of  General  Warrants  was  again 
debated  in  full  houses,  and  again  the  Ministry  had  a  small  majority. 
The  question  of  taxing  America  by  Stamp  Duties  produced  only 
a  feeble  debate  and  only  one  division.  On  the  6th  of  February, 
Grenville  introduced  fifty-five  Resolutions,  which  were  to  be  en- 
grafted into  the  Stamp  Act.  Walpole  says,  "  This  famous  Bill, 

little  understood  here  at  that  time,  was  less  attended  to 

The  colonies,  in  truth,  were  highly  alarmed,  and  had  sent  over  rep- 
resentations so  strong  against  being  taxed  here,  that  it  was  not 
thought  decent  or  safe  to  present  their  memorial  to  Parliament."  f 
The  colonists  could  not  see  in  Grenville's  proposition  for  a  paltry 
tax,  any  other  than  the  beginning  of  an  attempt  to  tax  them  largely 
without  their  own  consent.  They  denied  the  right  of  the  House  of 
Commons  to  tax  them  unless  they  had  representatives  in  that 
House.  Grenville  had  rashly  termed  his  Resolution  for  a  Stamp 
Act  as  "  an  experiment  towards  further  aid."  Where  was  the  sys- 
tem, thus  begun,  to  end  ?  The  Stamp  Act  was  passed,  without  a 
debate  or  division  in  the  House  of  Lords ;  and  it  received  the 
Royal  Assent  on  the  22nd  of  March.  Benjamin  Franklin,  as  agent 
for  the  province  of  Pennsylvania,  had  come  to  London  to  oppose 
the  passing  of  the  Act.  When  it  was  passed,  he  wrote  to  a  corre- 
spondent in  America,  "  We  might  as  well  have  hindered  the  sun's 
setting.  That  we  could  not  do.  But  since  it  is  down,  my  friend, 
and  it  may  be  long  before  it  rises  again,  let  us  make  as  good  a 
night  of  it  as  we  can.  We  may  still  light  candles.  Frugality  and 
industry  will  go  a  great  way  towards  indemnifying  us."  The  pru- 
dential submission  of  Franklin  to  an  evil  which  he  thought  inevita- 
ble was  not  the  prevailing  feeling  of  the  colonists.  The  Act  was 
to  come  into  operation  on  the  1st  of  November.  When  the  enact- 
ment first  became  known,  there  was  a  deep  expression  of  grief,  but 
scarcely  any  manifestation  of  resentment.  But  in  the  State  As- 
semblies, a  determination  not  to  submit  without  remonstrance  was 
quickly  manifested.  Virginia,  the  most  attached  to  the  monarchy 
of  all  the  provinces — the  most  opposed  to  democratic  principles — 
was  the  first  to  demand  a  repeal  of  the  Statute  by  which  the  col- 
onists were  taxed  without  their  own  consent.  The  Resolutions  of 
the  Assembly  of  Virginia  went  forth  as  an  example  to  the  other 
provinces,  many  of  which  passed  similar  Resolutions.  But  in  Vir- 

»  "  Grenville  Papers,"  vol.  ii.  p.  374.  +  "  George  III.,"  vol-  ii.  p.  68. 


RESISTANCE   IN   AMERICA.  85 

ginia  there  was  an  orator  of  no  common  order.  Patrick  Henry, 
who  was  born  in  1736,  had  received  no  regular  education — had  been 
a  farmer  and  then  a  shopkeeper, — when  he  adopted  the  law  as  a 
profession.  He  obtained  a  brief  in  a  great  public  cause  ;  and  then 
manifested  qualities  which  left  every  competitor  far  behind.  As  a 
member  of  the  House  of  Burgesses  at  Williamsburg,  he  is  held  by 
Mr.  Jefferson  to  have  given  "  the  earliest  impulse  to  the  ball  of 
revolution."  Jefferson,  then  twenty-two  years  of  age,  first  heard 
Patrick  Henry  in  the  Assembly  in  May,  1765,  when  he  brought 
forward  certain  resolutions  against  the  Stamp  Act ;  and,  fifty  years 
afterwards,  Jefferson  declared  that  he  never  heard  such  eloquence 
from  any  other  man.*  One  specimen  of  Henry's  oratory  on  the 
Stamp  Act,  in  this  Assembly,  has  been  preserved  :  "  Caesar,"  he 
exclaimed,  "  had  his  Brutus  ;  Charles  the  First  had  his  Cromwell ; 
and  George  the  Third" "  Treason,"  cried  the  Speaker;  "  Trea- 
son," cried  many  of  the  members — "  may  profit  by  their  example," 
was  the  conclusion  of  the  sentence.  "  If  this  be  treason,"  said 
Henry,  "make  the  most  of  it."  The  House  of  Burgesses  in  Vir- 
ginia was  dissolved  by  the  governor  of  the  province  ;  but  the  torch 
which  had  been  lighted  was  carried  from  state  to  state ;  and  dele- 
gates were  appointed  by  several  of  the  Assemblies  for  a  General 
Congress  to  meet  at  New  York. 

The  cry  of  "  treason  "  in  the  Assembly  of  Virginia,  although 
followed  by  the  strong  remonstrance  of  the  burgesses,  was  a  man- 
ifestation of  the  desire  which  then  almost  universally  prevailed 
amongst  the  colonists  to  regard  themselves  as  bound  in  allegiance 
to  the  British  crown.  The  alienation  was  a  gradual  result  of  a 
mistaken  view  of  the  policy  that  ought  to  prevail,  between  a  colony 
that  had  grown  to  a  real  capacity  for  independence  and  the  parent 
State.  It  was  a  result,  also,  of  that  system  of  parliamentary  cor- 
ruption and  of  court  influence  which  at  that  time  entered  so  large- 
ly into  the  government  of  England.  Walpole  says  that  the  Stamp 
Act  "removed  the  burthen  of  a  tax  to  distant  shoulders;"  that 
Grenville  contemplated  his  measure  "  in  the  light  of  easing  and 
improving  an  over-burthened  country."  f  Burke,  in  his  memorable 
speech  on  American  taxation,  on  the  ipth  of  April,  1774,  exhib- 
ited this  fact  more  distinctly.  He  points  out  that  upon  the  close 
of  the  war,  "  the  necessity  was  established  of  keeping  up  no  less 
than  twenty  new  regiments,  with  twenty  colonels  capable  of  seats 
in  this  House.  .  .  .  Country  gentlemen,  the  great  patrons  of  econ- 
omy, and  the  great  resisters  of  a  standing  armed  force,  would  not 

*  Tucker — "  Life  of  Jefferson,"  vol.  i.  p.  40. 
t  "  George  IJI.,"  vol.  ii.  p.  68  and  p.  70. 


86  HISTORY  OF  ENGLAND. 

have  entered  with  much  alacrity  into  the  vote  for  so  large  and  ex- 
pensive an  army,  if  they  had  been  very  sure  that  they  were  to  con- 
tinue to  pay  for  it.  But  hopes  of  another  kind  were  held  out  to 
them."  He  then  traces  in  this  speech  the  policy  of  Mr.  Gren- 
ville,  and  the  peculiarities  of  his  character,  which  led  him  to  think 
"  better  of  the  wisdom  and  power  of  legislation  than  in  truth  it  de- 
serves ;  "  to  believe  "  regulation  to  be  commerce,  and  taxes  to  be 
revenue."  The  Navigation  Act  was  Grenville's  idol.  The  com- 
merce of  America  "had  filled  all  its  proper  channels  to  the  brim." 
He  "  turned  his  eye  somewhat  less  than  was  just  towards  the  in- 
credible increase  of  the  fair  trade  ;  and  looked  with  something  of 
too  exquisite  a  jealousy  towards  the  contraband."  The  result  was, 
that  "  the  bonds  of  the  Act  of  Navigation  were  straitened  so  much, 
that  America  was  on  the  point  of  having  no  trade,  either  contra- 
band or  legitimate."  The  Americans,  Burke  says,  "  thought  them- 
selves proceeded  against  as  delinquents,  or  at  best  as  people  un- 
der suspicion  of  delinquency."  They  were  irritated  enough  before 
the  Stamp  Act  came.  They  adopted  such  counter  measures  as 
appeared  efficient  to  a  people  that  had  not  yet  begun  to  feel  their 
own  strength,  and  understand  their  own  resources.  They  agreed 
amongst  themselves  to  wear  no  English  manufactured  cloth  ;  and 
to  encourage  the  breed  of  sheep  that  they  might  manufacture 
cloth  from  their  own  wool.  They  protested  against  the  English 
monopoly ;  and  they  devised,  feebly  enough,  such  measures  as 
they  thought  might  overcome  it.  At  last  what  Burke  calls  "the 
scheme  of  a  regular  plantation  parliamentary  revenue  "  was  estab- 
lished— "  a  revenue  not  substituted  in  the  place  of,  but  superadded 
to,  a  monopoly  ;  which  monopoly  was  enforced  at  the  same  time 
with  additional  strictness,  and  the  execution  put  into  military 
hands."  It  was  one  of  the  misfortunes  of  Mr.  Grenville's  scheme 
that  his  Stamp  Act  was  popular.  "  Great  was  the  applause  of  this 
measure  here.  In  England  we  cried  out  for  new  taxes  on  America, 
whilst  they  cried  out  that  they  were  nearly  crushed  with  those 
which  the  war,  and  their  own  grants,  had  brought  upon  them." 
Such  was  the  commencement  of  a  struggle  which  ended  in  the  in- 
dependence of  the  American  colonies,  and  thenceforward  in  the 
establishment  of  an  empire  which  has  shown  how  quickly,  in  one 
vast  region,  might  be  realised  the  probable  future  contemplated 
by  Adam  Smith ; — when  "  the  inhabitants  of  all  the  different  quar- 
ters of  the  world  may  arrive  at  that  equality  of  courage  and  force 
which,  by  inspiring  mutual  fear,  can  alone  overawe  the  injustice  of 
independent  nations  into  some  sort  of  respect  for  the  rights  of 
one  another."* 

*  "Wealth  of  Nations,"  book  iv.  chap.  vii. 


ILLNESS   OF   THE    KING,  87 


CHAPTER   V. 

Illness  of  the  king. — The  Regency  Bill. — Overtures  to  Pitt. — He  declines  office. — Gren. 
ville  and  Bedford. — The  Rockingham  Administration. — Disturbances  in  America. — 
Parliament. — Debates  on  the  Stamp  Act. — Pitt  contends  for  its  Repeal. — Examina- 
tion of  Dr.  Franklin. — Declaratory  Bill  as  to  rights  over  the  Colonies. — Repeal  of  the 
Stamp  Act. — Weakness  of  the  Rockingham  Administration. — They  quit  office. —  P'M 
created  earl  of  Chatham. — His  loss  of  popularity. — His  plans  for  gfeat  measures. — 
Embargo  on  Corn. — Chatham's  illness. — Disorganisation  of  his  ministry. — Parliament 
dissolved. 

DURING  the  progress  of  the  Bill  for  the  taxation  of  the  Ameri- 
can Colonies,  the  king  was  attacked  by  a  serious  indisposition.  On 
the  nature  of  that  illness  the  greatest  secresy  was  maintained. 
"  The  king's  illness,"  says  Walpole,  "  had  occasioned  a  general 
alarm  ;  but,  though  he  escaped  the  danger,  his  health  was  so  pre- 
carious, and  he  had  such  frequent  disorders  in  his  breast  on  taking 
the  least  cold,  that  all  sober  men  wished  to  see  a  Regency  settled 
by  Parliament  in  case  of  his  death."  *  The  real  nature  of  the 
king's  malady  was  not  suspected  by  the  politicians  of  that  day,  or 
by  the  general  public.  "  His  majesty  had  a  serious  illness — its 
peculiar  character  was  then  unknown,  but  we  have  the  best  author- 
ity for  believing  that  it  was  of  the  nature  of  those  which  thrice  after 
afflicted  his  majesty,  and  finally  incapacitated  him  for  the  duties  of 
government."  This  is  the  statement  of  a  gentleman  whose  means 
of  information,  and  whose  diligence  in  penetrating  into  the  secret 
passages  of  the  past,  were  of  more  permanent  value  than  his  adroit- 
ness in  the  use  of  the  facts  he  ascertained  for  the  advancement  of 
his  own  party  views. f  The  family  of  George  III.  at  that  time  con- 
sisted of  George,  prince  of  Wales,  born  on  the  I2th  of  August, 
1762  ;  and  of  Frederick,  duke  of  York,  born  on  the  i6th  of  August, 
1763.  The  differences  of  opinion  between  the  king  and  his  min- 
isters upon  the  Regency  Bill  are  of  minor  importance  in  a  view  of 
public  affairs  at  this  distance  of  time,  and  require  no  elaborate 
detail.  The  king  wished  that  the  power  of  nominating  a  Regent 
should  be  vested  in  himself.  The  Ministry  thought  it  desirable 
that  a  Regency  during  the  minority  of  the  successor  to  the  throne 
should  be  distinctly  named.  On  the  24th  of  April,  his  majesty,  in 

*  "  George  III."  vol.  ii.  p.  95.    ' 

t  Mr.  Croker,  in  "  Quarterly  Review,"  vol.  Ixvi.  p.  240. 


88  HtSTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

a  speech  from  the  throne,  proposed,  whether,  under  the  present 
circumstances,  it  would  not  be  expedient  to  vest  in  him  the  power 
of  appointing,  from  time  to  time,  by  instrument  in  writing,  under 
his  sign-manual,  either  the  queen,  or  any  other  person  of  his  royal 
family,  usually  residing  in  Great  Britain,  as  guardian  of  the  person 
of  his  successor  and  as  regent  of  these  kingdoms.  When  a  Bill  to 
this  effect  had  passed  the  Commons,  a  doubt  arose  in  the  Lords, 
whether  the  princess-dowager  of  Wales  was  included  in  the  term 
"  My  Royal  Family."  Lord  Halifax,  one  of  the  Secretaries  of 
State,  went  to  the  king,  and  said  that  the  matter  ought  to  be  cleared 
up ;  but  that  if  the  name  of  his  majesty's  mother  appeared  in  the 
Bill,  the  House  of  Commons  would  probably  strike  it  out.  The 
king  reluctantly  acquiesced,  and  then  the  Royal  Family  was  defined 
as  "  all  the  descendants  of  the  late  king."  Grenville  refused  to 
introduce  the  name  of  the  princess-dowager,  as  he  was  urged  to  do 
bv  her  friends  ;  and  upon  this,  a  member,  unconnected  with  the 
ministry,  made  a  proposition  to  that  effect.  The  name  of  the 
king's  mother  was  decided  to  be  introduced  into  the  Bill,  by  the 
vote  of  a  large  majority.  The  king  was  now  indignant  at  the  con- 
duct of  his  ministers  ;  sent  for  his  uncle  the  duke  0*  Cumberland  ; 
and  commissioned  him  to  negotiate  with  Mr.  Pitt  for  a  return  to 
power.  It  was  an  embarrassing  time  in  which  to  contemplate  a 
change  of  ministry.  America  was  getting  into  a  flame  of  anger  at 
the  Stamp  Act.  London  was  terrified  by  riots  of  Spitalfields- 
weavers,  upon  the  rejection  of  a  Bill  which  would  have  prohibited 
the  importation  of  foreign  silks.  What  Burke  calls  "  the  vertigo 
of  the  Regency  Bill "  produced  changes  which  an  untoward  aspect 
of  national  affairs  might  have  failed  to  effect. 

The  rumours  that  the  king  contemplated  a  change  of  ministers 
produced  an  opinion  in  one  then  unconnected  with  official  life,  but 
who  looked  upon  political  affairs,  and  public  men,  from  a  higher 
elevation  than  most  observers  of  the  shifting  scenes  of  that  time. 
Edmund  Burke  announced  to  a  friend,  with  reference  to  Pitt,  that 
"  this  crisis  will  show  whether  pride  or  patriotism  be  predominant 
in  his  character."  To  him,  wrote  Burke,  is  open  "  to  come  into 
the  service  of  his  country  upon  any  plan  of  politics  he  chooses  to 
dictate.  ...  A  few  days  will  show  whether  he  will  take  his  part, 
or  continue  on  his  back  at  Hayes,  talking  fustian."  The  duke  of 
Cumberland  went  to  Hayes,  and  there  learnt  the  "  plan  of  politics  " 
which  Pitt  chose  "  to  dictate."  There  was  no  "  fustian  "  in  his 
sensible  propositions, — that  General  Warrants  should  be  repudi- 
ated ;  that  dismissed  officers  should  be  restored  ;  that  Protestant 
alliances  should  be  formed,  to  balance  the  Family  Compact  of  the 


OVERTURES   TO   PITT.  89 

Bourbons.  There  was  some  difference  of  opinion  about  appoint- 
ments, but  these  might  have  been  removed.  Earl  Temple  was 
sent  for  ;  and  although  he  was  intended  for  the  office  of  First  Lord 
of  the  Treasury,  he  persuaded  his  brother-in-law  to  give  up  the 
negotiation.  He  was  seeking  a  ministerial  alliance  with  his  brother, 
George  Grenville,  to  whom  he  had  become  reconciled,  and  he  con- 
ceived the  plan  of  inducing  Pitt  to  join  them ;  in  which  union  he 
fancied  he  saw  a  power  that  would  enable  them  to  stand  alone  with- 
out the  support  of  ducal  Whigs,  or  courtly  Tories.  The  king  was 
obliged  to  call  back  his  ministers,  Grenville  and  Bedford.  They 
dictated  terms  to  the  king ;  and  Bedford  appears  to  have  deported 
himself  in  a  spirit  which  may  have  been  grossly  exaggerated  by 
Junius,  but  which  is  not  wholly  removed  from  truth.  "  The  duke 
of  Bedford  demanded  an  audience  of  the  king ;  reproached  him, 
in  plain  terms,  with  duplicity,  baseness,  falsehood,  treachery,  and 
hypocrisy  ;  repeatedly  gave  him  the  lie  ;  and  left  him  in  strong  con- 
vulsions." A  paper  was  read,  according  to  Walpole,  in  which  the 
king  was  told  "  that  he  must  smile  on  his  ministers,  and  frown  on 
their  adversaries,  whom  he  was  reproached,  in  no  light  terms,  with 
having  countenanced,  contrary  to  his  promise.  Invectives  against 
the  Princess  were  not  spared ;  nor  threats  of  bringing  lord  Bute 
to  the  block."  The  king  bowed  to  the  ministers  to  retire,  and  said 
"  if  he  had  not  broken  out  into  the  most  profuse  sweat  he  should 
have  been  suffocated  with  indignation."  *  Pitt  was  again  applied 
to ;  and  he  again  declined  to  take  office  without  lord  Temple,  who 
persevered  in  his  resolution,  at  an  audience  which  both  had  of  the 
king.  The  Whig  families  were  again  resorted  to.  The  duke  of 
Newcastle  again  obtained  a  post  of  honour  in  receiving  the  Privy 
Seal ;  the  duke  of  Grafton  became  one  of  the  Secretaries  of  State, 
with  general  Conway  as  the  other  Secretary ;  and  the  marquis  of 
Rockingham  was  named  First  Lord  of  the  Treasury.  Untried  colts 
and  worn-out  hacks  were  harnessed  together,  to  drag  the  state-coach 
through  the  sloughs  in  which  it  was  travelling.  They  pulled  hon- 
estly side  by  side  for  a  brief  journey ;  and  then  came  to  a  dead 
stop.  This  ministry  had  the  lasting  credit  of  bringing  one  man  of 
extraordinary  genius  into  public  life,  though  in  a  subordinate  situ- 
ation. The  eloquent  gratitude  of  Edmund  Burke  to  the  marquis 
of  Rockingham  has  made  us  think  favourably  of  the  head  of  this 
ministry,  for  "  sound  principles,  enlargement  of  mind,  clear  and 
sagacious  sense,  and  unshaken  fortitude."  f  Such  qualities  were 
needed  at  such  a  crisis. 

*  "  George  III."  vol.  ii.  p.  183.  t  Speech  on  American  Taxation. 


90  HISTORY   OF    ENGLAND. 

The  Rockingham  Administration  came  into  office  c/n  the  lotli 
of  July.  Parliament  had  been  prorogued  previous  to  their  ap- 
pointment ;  and  a  few  months  passed  on  without  any  disturbing 
events.  At  last  came  intelligence  which  demanded  grave  and 
anxious  consideration.  In  the  autumn  of  1765,  various  letters 
were  received  by  Mr.  Secretary  Conway,  from  official  persons  in 
America,  relating  the  particulars  of  riots  at  Boston  and  in  the  Col- 
ony of  Rhode  Island.  At  Boston,  the  effigy  of  the  gentleman  who 
had  accepted  the  office  of  stamp-distributor  was  hung  upon  a  tree, 
which  was  subsequently  called  "  Liberty  Tree ; "  his  house  was 
sacked,  and  he  was  compelled  to  promise  to  resign  his  office. 
These  riots  went  on  for  a  fortnight,  with  much  wanton  destruction 
of  property.  A  letter  from  New  York  of  the  25th  of  September, 
to  Conway,  says  "  the  general  scheme  concerted  throughout  seems 
to  have  been,  first  by  menace  or  force,  to  oblige  the  stamp  officers 
to  resign  their  employments,  in  which  they  have  generally  succeed- 
ed ;  and  next,  to  destroy  the  stamped  papers  upon  their  arrival, — 
that,  having  no  stamps,  necessity  might  be  an  excuse  for  the  dis- 
patch of  business  without  them."  *  But  more  important  than  the 
outrages  of  mobs  were  the  solemn  proceedings  of  a  Congress  at 
New  York,  comprising  delegates  from  nine  Assemblies.  They 
continued  their  sittings  for  three  weeks ;  and  then  passed  fourteen 
Resolutions,  in  which  they  maintained  the  right  of  every  British 
subject  to  be  taxed  only  by  his  own  consent,  or  that  of  his  legal 
representatives  and  that  their  only  legal  representatives  were  those 
annually  chosen  to  serve  as  members  of  the  Assembly  of  each  pro- 
vince. 

The  Administration  was  in  a  position  of  extreme  difficulty. 
The  strong  opposition  of  the  Colonial  Assemblies  was  a  reason  for 
minsters  re-considering  the  measures  of  their  predecessors ;  but  a 
submission  to  the  violent  resistance  to  the  authority  of  the  imperial 
legislature  would  be  to  manifest  an  unworthy  fear,  which  might 
have  the  effect  of  encouraging  other  resistance  to  the  law.  But 
there  were  consequences  arising  out  of  the  discontent  and  resent- 
ment of  the  colonists  which  were  productive  of  immediate  evils,  at 
home,  and  threatened  greater  dangers  for  the  future.  A  petition 
of  the  merchants  of  London  trading  to  North  America  set  forth, 
so  that  this  commerce,  so  necessary  for  the  support  of  multitudes, 
was  under  such  difficulties  that  its  utter  ruin  was  apprehended  ; 
and  that  several  millions  sterling,  due  to  the  merchants  of  Great 
Britain,  were  withheld  by  the  colonists,  on  the  plea  that  the  taxes 
and  restrictions  laid  upon  them  had  rendered  them  unable  to  meet 

*  "Papers  laid  before  Parliament,  in  "  Parliamentary  History,"  vol.  xvi. 


PARLIAMENT. — DEBATES   ON   THE   STAMP   ACT.  9! 

their  engagements.  Scarcely  seeing  a  way  out  of  the  difficulties 
that  surrounded  them,  the  ministers,  on  the  meeting  of  Parliament 
on  the  I4th  of  January,  after  the  Christmas  recess,  laid  the  papers 
before  the  two  Houses  which  "give  any  light  into  the  origin, 
the  progress,  or  the  tendency,  of  the  disturbances  which  have 
of  late  prevailed  in  some  of  the  northern  colonies."  Such  were 
the  terms  of  the  king's  speech.  His  majesty  said,  that  he  had  is- 
sued orders  for  the  exertion  of  all  powers  of  government  for  the 
suppression  of  riots  and  tumults ;  and  added,  "  Whatever  remains 
to  be  done  on  this  occasion  I  commit  to  your  wisdom."  A  debate 
ensued  in  the  Commons,  which  was  reported  by  two  members,  and 
printed  in  Paris, — the  Houses  still  strictly  forbidding  the  publica- 
tion of  their  proceedings.  On  that  night  Burke  made  his  first 
speech  in  parliament ;  and  Pitt,  whose  voice  had  not  been  heard 
for  a  year,  delivered  one  of  those  orations  which,  however  imper- 
fectly recorded,  give  us  a  notion  of  that  supremacy  that,  broken  as 
he  was  in  health,  wrapped  in  flannels,  and  giving  effect  to  his  ac- 
tion with  a  crutch,  he  still,  above  all  men.  exercised  over  his  con- 
temporaries. In  a  letter  which  he  wrote  from  Bath  on  the  9th,  he 
said  "  If  I  can  crawl,  or  be  carried,  I  will  deliver  my  mind  and 
heart  upon  the  state  of  America."  What  he  then  spoke  was  re- 
membered and  repeated  as  the  great  contest  went  on ;  and  by 
none  more  diligently  than  by  the  colonists.  He  went  with  them  to 
the  full  extent  of  denying  the  right  of  the  British  Legislature  to 
impose  taxes  without  representation.  He  touched  upon  great  prin- 
ciples that  extended  beyond  this  question  of  taxing  the  American 
Colonies :  "  There  is  an  idea  in  some  that  the  Colonies  are  virtually 
represented  in  this  House.  I  would  fain  know  by  whom  an  Ameri- 
can is  represented  here  ?  Is  he  represented  by  any  knight  of  the 
shire,  in  any  county  in  this  kingdom  ?  Would  to  God  that  re- 
spectable representation  was  augmented  to  a  greater  number  !  Or 
will  you  tell  him  that  he  is  represented  by  any  representative 
of  a  borough — a  borough,  which,  perhaps,  its  own  representative 
never  saw.  This  is  what  is  called  '  the  rotten  part  of  the  constitu- 
tion.' It  cannot  continue  the  century  ;  if  it  does  not  drop,  it  must 
be  amputated.  The  idea  of  a  virtual  representation  of  America, in 
this  House  is  the  most  contemptible  idea  that  ever  entered  into 
the  head  of  a  man ;  it  does  not  deserve  a  serious  refutation.  The 
Commons  of  America,  represented  in  their  several  Assemblies, 
have  ever  been  in  possession  of  the  exercise  of  this,  their  consti- 
tutional right,  of  giving  and  granting  their  own  money.  They 
«vould  have  been  slaves  if  they  had  not  enjoyed  it."  Grenville 
eplied  to  Pitt,  and  defended  his  Stamp  Act, :  "  When  I  proposed 


92  HISTORY   OF   ENGLAND. 

to  tax  America,  I  asked  the  House,  if  any  gentleman  would  object 
to  the  right.  I  repeatedly  asked  it,  and  no  man  would  attempt  to 
deny  it.  Protection  and  obedience  are  reciprocal.  Great  Britain 
protects  America;  America  is  bound  to  yield  obedience.  If  not; 
tell  me  when  the  Americans  were  emancipated  ?  When  they  want 
the  protection  of  this  kingdom,  they  are  always  very  ready  to  ask 
it.  That  protection  has  always  been  afforded  them  in  the  most 
full  and  ample  manner.  The  nation  has  run  itself  into  an  immense 
debt  to  give  them  their  protection :  and  now  they  are  called  upon 
to  contribute  a  small  share  towards  the  public  expense,  an  expense 
arising  from  themselves,  they  renounce  your  authority,  insult  your 
officers,  and  break  out,  I  might  almost  say,  into  open  rebellion. 
The  seditious  spirit  of  the  colonies  owes  its  birth  to  the  factions 
in  this  House."  Pitt  was  permitted  again  to  speak,  the  House 
being  clamorous  to  hear  him.  There  are  passages  in  his  second 
speech  which  show  how  much  the  House  rained  in  this  departure 
from  its  ordinary  rules.  We  may  give  the  concluding  summary  of 
the  orator's  opinions  :  "A  great  deal  has  been  said  without  doors, 
of  the  power,  of  the  strength,  of  America.  It  is  a  topic  that  ought 
to  be  cautiously  meddled  with.  In  a  good  cause,  on  a  sound  bot- 
tom, the  force  of  this  country  can  crush  America  to  atoms  .... 
In  such  a  cause,  your  success  would  be  hazardous.  America,  if 
she  fell,  would  fall  like  a  strong  man.  She  would  embrace  the  pil- 
lars of  the  state,  and  pull  down  the  constitution  along  with  her.  Is 
this  your  boasted  peace  ?  Not  to  sheath  the  sword  in  its  scabbard, 
but  to  sheath  it  in  the  bowels  of  your  countrymen  ?  .  .  .  The  Ameri- 
cans have  not  acted  in  all  things  with  prudence  and  temper.  They 
have  been  wronged.  They  have  been  driven  to  madness  by  injus- 
tice. Will  you  puuisli  them  for  the  madness  you  have  occasioned  ? 
Rather  let  prudence  and  temper  come  first  from  this  side.  I  will 
undertake  for  America,  that  she  will  follow  the  example.  There 
are  two  lines  in  a  ballad  of  Prior's,  of  a  man's  behaviour  to  his 
wife,  so  applicable  to  you  and  your  colonies,  that  I  cannot  help 
repeating  them : 

'  Be  to  her  faults  a  little  blind: 
Be  to  her  virtues  very  kind.' 

Upon  the  whole,  I  will  beg  leave  to  tell  the  House  what  is  really 
my  opinion.  It  is,  that  the  Stamp  Act  be  repealed  absolutely, 
totally,  and  immediately.  That  the  reason  for  the  repeal  be  as- 
signed, because  it  was  founded  on  an  erroneous  principle.  At 
the  same  time  let  the  sovereign  authority  cf  this  country  over  the 
colonies  be  asserted  in  as  strong  terms  as  can  be  devised,  and  be 


DEBATE   ON   THE   STAMP   ACT.  93 

made  to  extend  to  every  point  of  legislation  whatsoever.  That  we 
may  bind  their  trade,  confine  their  manufactures,  and  exercise  every 
power  whatsoever,  except  that  of  taking  their  money  out  of  their 
pockets  without  their  consent." 

The  petitions  against  the  American  Stamp  Act,  and  the  papers 
laid  before  Parliament,  occupied  in  the  Commons  the  attention  of  a 
Committee  of  the  whole  House  for  three  weeks.  Several  persons 
were  also  examined,  amongst  whom  was  Dr.  Benjamin  Franklin. 
The  examination  of  this  eminent  man  afforded  much  practical 
information  as  to  the  condition  of  the  North  American  Colonies. 
He  considered  that  there  were  about  300,000  white  men  in  North 
America,  from  sixteen  to  sixty  years  of  age  ;  that  the  inhabitants 
of  all  the  provinces,  taken  at  a  medium,  double  in  about  twenty-five 
years  ;  that  the  colonists  raised,  clothed,  and  paid,  during  the  recent 
war,  near  twenty-five  thousand  men,  and  spent  many  millions ;  that 
they  paid  many  and  heavy  taxes  amongst  themselves,  for  the  sup- 
port of  the  civil  and  military  establishments  of  the  country,  and  to 
discharge  the  debt  contracted  in  the  war.  His  answer  to  the 
question,  "  What  was  the  temper  of  America  towards  Great  Britain 
before  the  year  1763?"  is  very  remarkable:  "The  best  in  the 
world.  They  submitted  willingly  to  the  government  of  the  Crown, 
and  paid,  in  all  their  courts,  obedience  to/  Acts  of  Parliament. 
Numerous  as  the  people  are  in  the  several  old  provinces,  they  cost 
you  nothing  in  forts,  citadels,  garrisons,  or  armies,  to  keep  them 
in  subjection.  They  were  governed  by  this  country  at  the  expense 
only  of  a  little  pen,  ink,  and  paper.  They  were  led  by  a  thread. 
They  had  not  only  a  respect,  but  an  affection,  for  Great  Britain  ; 
for  its  laws,  its  customs  and  manners,  and  even  a  fondness  for  its 
fashions,  that  greatly  increased  the  commerce.  Natives  of  Britain 
were  always  treated  with  particular  regard.  To  be  an  Old-Eng- 
land man  was,  of  itself,  a  character  of  some  respect,  and  gave  a 
kind  of  rank  amongst  us."  To  the  question,  Whether  he  thought 
the  people  of  America  would  submit  to  pay  the  Stamp  duty  if  it 
was  moderated,  he  boldly  answered,  "  No  ;  never ;  unless  compelled 
by  force  of  arms."  He  said  it  was  a  prevailing  opinion  amongst  the 
people  in  America,  that  they  could  not  be  taxed  in  a  Parliament 
where  they  were  not  represented  ;  but  the  payment  of  duties  laid  by 
Act  of  Parliament,  as  regulations  of  commerce,  was  never  disputed. 
They  distinguished  between  external  and  internal  taxes.  An  ex- 
ternal tax  was  a  duty  on  commodities  imported,  and  it  enhanced  their 
price  ;  but  the  people  were  not  obliged  to  pay  the  duty  ;  they  might 
refuse  the  article.  An  internal  tax  is  forced  from  the  people  with- 
out their  consent.  The  Americans  could  do  without  British 


94  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

maufactures.  They  could  do  without  cloth  from  England.  "  I 
am  of  opinion,"  said  Franklin,  "  that  before  their  old  clothes  are 
worn  out,  tl  ey  will  have  new  ones  of  their  own  making."  But 
"can  they  possibly  find  wool  enough  in  North  America  ?  "  he  was 
asked.  The  answer  showed  the  mettle  of  the  people  that  he  repre- 
sented :  "  They  have  taken  steps  to  increase  the  wool.  They  entered 
into  general  combination  to  eat  no  more  lamb,  and  very  few  lambs 
were  killed  last  year.  This  course,  persisted  in,  will  soon  make  a 
prodigious  difference  in  the  quantity  of  wool.  The  establishing  of 
great  manufactories,  like  those  in  the  clothing  towns,  is  not  neces- 
sary, as  it  is  where  the  business  is  to  be  carried  on  for  the  purposes 
of  trade.  The  people  will  all  spin  and  work  for  themselves,  in 
their  own  houses."  To  the  question,  "  If  the  Stamp  Act  should 
be  repealed,  would  it  induce  the  Assemblies  of  America  to  acknowl- 
edge the  right  of  Parliament  to  tax  them,  and  would  they  erase 
their  Resolutions  ?  "  the  answer  was,  "  No,  never." 

After  this  examination  of  papers  and  witnesses,  the  repeal  of 
the  Stamp  Act  was  recommended  by  the  Committee  of  the  whole 
House,  and  a  declaratory  Resolution  was  adopted  :  "That  the  king's 
majesty,  by  and  with  the  consent  of  the  Lords  spiritual  and  tempo- 
ral, and  Commons  of  Great  Britain,  in  Parliament  assembled,  had, 
hath,  and  of  right  ought  to  have,  full  power  and  authority  to  make 
laws  and  statutes  of  sufficient  force  and  validity  to  bind  the  colonies 
and  people  of  America,  subjects  of  the  Crown  of  Great  Britain,  in  all 
cases  whatsoever."  The  distinction  which  Pitt  had  maintained, 
that  Parliament  was  not  competent  to  pass  a  law  for  taxing  the 
Colonies,  was  set  at  nought  by  this  Resolution.  But  it  was  con- 
tended that  though  the  right  existed,  it  was  impolitic  to  exercise  it, 
and  therefore  the  Stamp  Act  ought  to  be  repealed.  Pitt  adhered 
to  his  opinion,  but  did  not  attempt  to  divide  the  House.  A  Declar- 
atory Bill  was  passed,  embodying  the  principle  of  the  power  of 
Parliament  to  bind  the  Colonies  "in  all  cases  whatsoever."  In  the 
Upper  House  this  Bill  was  supported  by  the  lord  chancellor  North- 
ington;  but  was  opposed  by  lord  Camden  in  a  very  remarkable 
speech,  in  which  he  explicitly  declared  that  "the  British  Parliament 
have  no  right  to  tax  the  Americans  ....  Taxation  and  Repre- 
sentation are  inseparably  united  ....  Taxation  and  representation 
are  coeval  with,  and  essential  to,  this  constitution."  He  alluded  to 
Carte's  History  of  England,  and  to  another  History  "  much  read 
and  admired"  [Hume's],  which  mischievously  endeavoured  "to  fix 
the  era  when  the  House  of  Commons  began  in  this  kingdom  .... 
When  did  the  House  of  Commons  first  begin  ?  When,  my  lords  ? 
It  began  with  the  Constitution,  it  grew  up  with  the  Constitution. 


REPEAL    OF   THE    STAMP   ACT.  95 

There  is  not  a  blade  of  grass  growing  in  the  most  obscure  corner 
of  the  kingdom,  which  is  not,  which  was  not  ever,  represented  since 
the  Constitution  began  ;  there  is  not  a  blade  of  grass  which,  when 
taxed,  was  not  taxed  by  the  consent  of  the  proprietor."  Lord 
Camden  divided  the  House ;  but  only  four  Peers  voted  with  him 
against  the  Declaratory  Bill.  Whilst  this  bill  was  passing  into  law, 
a  strong  opposition  was  getting  up  against  the  Bill  for  the  repeal 
of  the  Stamp  Act,  which  was  about  to  be  proposed  by  the  Govern- 
ment. It  is  painful  to  look  back  upon  one  of  the  most  miserable 
exhibitions  which  history  can  present  of  "  a  house  divided  against 
itself  " — those  called  the  friends  of  the  king  intriguing  against  the 
king's  ministers.  Lord  Bute,  whose  honour  was  never  doubted, 
whatever  might  have  been  his  political  indiscretions,  distinctly  gave 
his  solemn  word,  that  he  had  never  offered  an  opinion  upon  meas- 
ures, or  the  disposition  of  offices,  directly  or  indirectly,  since  the 
time  when  the  duke  of  Cumberland  was  consulted  on  the  arrange- 
ment of  a  ministry.  We  may  therefore  dismiss  from  our  minds  the 
popular  belief  that  lord  Bute  was  the  instigator  of  all  the  double- 
dealing  that  was  characteristic  of  the  early  years  of  the  reign  of 
George  III.  Burke  has  been  charged  with  exaggeration  in  denoun- 
cing the  system  pursued,  "  in  the  idea  of  weakening  the  State  in 
order  to  strengthen  the  Court ;  "  a  system  effected  by  those  he 
calls  "the  new  court  corporation."*  But  there  were  too  many 
proofs  of  the  evidence  of  "  a  reptile  species  of  politicians,  never  be- 
fore and  never  since  known  in  our  country."  f  They  worked  under- 
ground to  prevent  this  repeal  of  the  Stamp  Act.  Their  operations 
were  evinced  in  a  singular  misunderstanding  between  the  king  and 
his  ministers'  in  the  crisis  of  the  Stamp  Act.  The  most  dispassion- 
ate relation  of  the  circumstances  is  in  a  letter  of  general  Conway 
to  lord  Hertford,  on  the  I3th  of  February  :  "  His  majesty  had  told 
lord  Rockingham  and  the  duke  of  Graf  ton  that  he  was  for  the 
repeal ;  but  he  on  Tuesday  told  lord  Strange  that  he  was  not  so 
now — that  he  wished  his  opinion  to  be  known,  and  his  lordship 
might  declare  it.  This  ran  through  the  House  of  Commons  and 
the  town,  and  has  had  an  odd  effect.  Our  ministerial  lives  were 
not  thought  worth  three  days'  purchase.  His  majesty  has  been 
pleased  to  explain  himself  to  us,  that  he  always  was  for  the  repeal, 
when  contrasted  with  enforcing  the  whole  act,  but  not  as  compared 
with  modification.  We  told  his  Majesty  this  distinction  was  unfor- 
tunately not  explained  to  us  ;  and  that  in  consequence  we  had  (as 
fie  had  allowed  lord  Rockingham  particularly  to  do)  declared  his 

*  "  Present  Discontents. '' 

t  Macaulay,  in  "  Edinburgh  Review,"  vol.  Ixxx.  p.  516- 


96  HISTORY   OP   ENGLAND. 

majesty  to  be  for  the  repeal ;  and  that  on  all  accounts  we  were 
engaged  and  obliged  to  push  that  measure.  It  was  very  mortifying 
to  us,  and  very  unhappy,  that  it  now  appeared  to  be  against  his 
majesty's  sentiments,  which  put  us  into  an  odd  predicament,  being 
under  a  necessity  of  carrying  on  a  great  public  measure  against  his 
majesty's  declared  sentiments,  and  with  great  numbers  of  his  ser- 
vants acting  against  us.  He  was  not  displeased,  he  said,  with  our 
freedom — thought  we  acted  like  honest  men — had  no  design  of 
parting  us — always  foresaw  the  difficulties  which  might  attend  his 
business — but  that,  once  over,  he  hoped  all  things  would  go 
smoothly  again.  You  see  that  this  might  branch  out  into  very 
long  details,  had  I  time  for  them ;  but  this  is  the  substance.  'Tis 
a  whimsical  situation,  and  what  will  be  the  event  I  don't  know. 
I  think  the  Bill  of  Repeal  will  probably  pass,  because  our  disposi- 
tion for  it  is  too  strong  in  the  House  of  Commons  for  anything  now 
to  conquer ;  and  the  Lords,  I  think,  with  submission,  dare  not 
resist  it."  * 

The  House  of  Commons  came  to  a  decisive  vote  on  the  2ist  of 
February,  on  the  Resolution  that  leave  should  be  given  to  bring  in 
a  Bill  for  the  repeal  of  the  Stamp  Act.  The  Resolution  was  moved 
by  Conway.  He  drew  a  strong  picture  of  the  mischiefs  that  had 
already  ensued.  The  trade  of  England  was  not  only  stopped,  but 
in  danger  of  being  lost.  The  conflict  would  ruin  both  countries. 
"  If  we  did  not  repeal  the  Act,  he  had  no  doubt  but  France  and 
Spain  would  declare  war,  and  protect  the  Americans."  Grenville 
exposed  the  futility  of  maintaining  a  right  in  the  Declaratory  Bill 
which  the  government  would  not  dare  to  assert.  Pitt  demanded 
the  repeal  as  due  to  the  liberty  of  unrepresented  subjects.  The 
scene  after  the  termination  of  the  debate  on  that  February  morning 
has  been  described  by  Burke  in  glowing  words ;  but  words  not  too 
lofty  for  the  great  occasion  :  "  I  remember,  sir,  with  a  melancholy 
pleasure,  the  situation  of  the  honourable  gentleman  who  made  the 
motion  for  the  repeal ;  in  that  crisis,  when  the  whole  trading 
interest  of  this  empire,  crammed  into  your  lobbies,  with  a  trembling 
and  anxious  expectation,  waited,  almost  to  a  winter's  return  of 
light,  their  fate  from  your  resolutions.  When,  at  length,  you  had 
determined  in  their  favour,  and  your  doors,  thrown  open,  showed 
them  the  figure  of  their  deliverer  in  the  well-earned  triumph  of  his 
important  victory,  from  the  whole  of  that  grave  multitude  there 
arose  an  involuntary  burst  of  gratitude  and  transport.  They 
jumped  upon  him  like  children  on  a  long  absent  father.  They 
clung  about  him  as  captives  about  their  redeemer.  All  England, 

*  MS.  collection  of  "  Conway's  Letters." 


WEAKNESS   OF   THE   ROCKINGHAM   ADMINISTRATION.          97 

all  America,  joined  to  his  applause.  Nor  did  he  seem  insensible 
to  the  best  of  all  earthly  rewards,  the  love  and  admiration  of  his 
zellow-citizens.  Hope  elevated  and  joy  brightened  his  crest."* 
Such  was  the  enthusiasm  towards  Conway,  the  mover  of  the 
Resolution.  Walpole  has  described  the  difference  in  the  reception 
of  Pitt  and  Grenville.  When  Pitt  appeared,  the  crowd  pulled  off 
their  hats,  huzzaed,  and  many  followed  his  chair  home  with  shouts 
and  benedictions.  Grenville  was  hissed ;  and  in  a  rage,  seized 
the  nearest  man  to  him  by  the  collar.  "  Providentially  the  fellow 
had  more  humour  than  spleen — '  Well,  if  I  may  not  hiss,'  said  he, 
'  at  least  I  may  laugh,'  and  laughed  in  his  face.  The  jest  caught ; 
had  the  fellow  been  surly  and  resisted,  a  tragedy  had  probably 
ensued."!  The  Bill  for  the  repeal  finally  passed  the  Commons 
by  a  large  majority ;  and  the  Lords,  by  a  majority  of  more  than 
thirty. 

When  Mr.  Pitt  made  his  memorable  appearance  in  the  House 
of  Commons,  on  the  I4th  of  January,  1766,  to  deliver  his  opinion 
against  the  Resolution  of  the  House  to  tax  America,  which  had 
passed  "when  he  was  ill  in  bed,"  he  said:  "If  I  could  have 
endured  to  be  carried  in  my  bed — so  great  was  my  agitation  for 
the  consequences — I  would  have  had  some  kind  hand  to  have  laid 
me  down  on  this  floor  to  have  borne  my  testimony  against  it.  It 
is  now  an  Act  that  has  passed."  But  he  knew  that  a  ministry  had 
meanwhile  come  into  power  who  were  disposed  to  repair  the  evil 
consequences  which  he  had  apprehended.  To  that  ministry  he 
took  the  earliest  opportunity  of  declaring  that  he  did  not  give  his 
strenuous  support.  He  had  advised  some  of  them,  he  said,  "to 
engage,  but  notwithstanding,  I  cannot  give  them  my  confidence. 
Pardon  me,  gentlemen,  confidence  is  a  plant  of  slow  growth  in  an 
aged  bosom."  He  plainly  discovered,  he  affirmed,  "the  traces  of 
an  over-ruling  influence."  He  distinctly  pointed  to  the  supposed 
influence  of  lord  Bute.  The  great  Commoner  was  probably  mis- 
taken, but  he  was  undoubtedly  sincere.  Conway  distinctly  repelled 
the  charge  that  the  ministry  had  been  subjected  to  that  particular 
influence.  Pitt  has  been  greatly  blamed  for  not  allying  himself 
with  the  Rockingham  Administration.  He  was  invited  by  them 
with  an  earnestness  that  approached  to  obsequiousness.  He 
turned  a  deaf  ear  to  their  overtures.  They  fell,  from  their 
inability  to  stand  against  the  unwilling  support  of  the  sover- 
eign, and  the  intrigues  of  those  who  arrogated  to  themselves  the 
exclusive  title  of  the  king's  friends.  This  ministry  did  popular 
things.  They  gave  in  to  the  clamour  of  the  weavers,  by  passing 

*  Speech  on  American  Taxation,  1774.  t  "  George  III.,"  vol.  ii.  p.  299. 

VOL.  VI.— 7 


1,8  HISTORY   OF    ENGLAND. 

an  act  for  restraining  the  importation  of  foreign  silks.  They 
repealed  the  cider  tax.  They  passed  Resolutions  declaring  the 
illegality  of  General  Warrants,  and  condemning  the  seizure  of 
private  papers,  to  discover  the  authors  of  libels.  Their  conces- 
sions in  some  degree  indicated  their  weakness.  Several  of  their 
minor  supporters  deserted  them.  The  duke  of  Grafton  left  them, 
resigning  his  office  of  Secretary  of  State,  on  the  ground  that  they 
wanted  "  authority,  dignity,  and  extension ;  "  that  he  knew  but 
one  man  who  could  give  them  strength  and  solidity  ;  and  that  were 
that  person  to  give  his  assistance,  "  he  should  with  pleasure  take 
up  the  spade  and  the  pickaxe,  and  dig  in  the  trenches."*  A 
disagreement  ensued  in  the  Cabinet ;  the  king  was  told  that  the 
ministry  could  not  go  on  as  they  were  ;  and  his  majesty,  in  July, 
resolved  to  send  for  Mr.  Pitt,  and  so  told  his  servants.  The  king 
wrote  him  a  letter,  expressing  his  desire  to  have  his  thoughts 
"  how  an  able  and  dignified  ministry  may  be  formed."  Pitt  an- 
swered the  king — "  penetrated  with  the  deepest  sense  of  your 
majesty's  boundless  goodness  to  me,  and  with  a  heart  overflowing 
with  duty  and  zeal  for  the  honour  and  happiness  of  the  most  gra- 
cious and  benign  sovereign."  Lord  Temple  was  sent  for  by  the 
king ;  and  his  majesty  wrote  to  Mr.  Pitt,  who  was  ill,  that  he  had 
opened  a  desire  to  see  his  lordship  in  the  Treasury ;  but  that  "  he 
seems  to  incline  to  quarters  very  heterogeneous  to  my  and  your 
ideas,  and  almost  a  total  exclusion  of  the  present  men."  Temple 
was  ambitious.  He  was  indignant  at  the  idea  of  being  "  stuck 
into  a  ministry  as  a  great  cypher  at  the  head  of  the  Treasury,  sur- 
rounded with  other  cyphers  all  named  by  Mr.  Pitt."  f  The 
ministry  was  at  length  formed.  The  duke  of  Grafton  became  head 
of  the  Treasury;  general  Conway  and  lord  Shelburne,  Secretaries 
of  State ;  lord  Camden,  Lord  Chancellor ;  Charles  Townshend, 
Chancellor  of  the  Exchequer.  Mr.  Pitt,  to  the  great  surprise  of 
the  world,  on  taking  the  office  of  Lord  Privy  Seal  went  to  the 
House  of  Peers  as  Earl  of  Chatham. 

The  transformation  of  Pitt  into  Chatham  is  held  to  have  de- 
stroyed his  popularity.  "  That  fatal  title  blasted  all  the  affection 
which  his  country  had  borne  to  him,  and  which  he  had  deserved 

so  well The  people,  though  he  had  done  no  act  to  occasion 

reproach,  thought  he  had  sold  them  fora  title. "J  The  City  of 
London  declined  to  present  an  address  on  the  appointment  to  of- 
fice of  the  man  they  had  idolised.  The  objectors  seem  to  have 
forgotten  the  bodily  infirmities  which  necessarily  prevented  him 

*  '•'  Chatham  Correspondence,"  vol.  ii.  p.  422.  +  Ibid.,  p.  436  and  43^. 

t  Walpole — "  George  III.,  "  vol.  ii.  p.  358. 


PITT'S  "LOSS  OF  POPULARITY.  99 

taking  the  post  in  the  House  of  Commons  which  a  prime  minister 
was  expected  to  take  ;  and  they  scarcely  gave  him  credit  for  the 
power  which  remained  to  him,  of  influencing  his  colleagues  by  the 
vigour  of  his  plans,  when  he  could  not  command  a  popular  assem- 
bly by  the  splendour  of  his  eloquence.  He  had  large  projects  of 
statesmanship.  He  was  anxious  to  cement  an  alliance  with  the 
Protestant  States  of  Europe,  to  counterbalance  the  Family  Com- 
pact of  France  and  Spain,  which  was  leading  those  powers  again 
to  meditate  attacks  upon  England.  He  sent  an  ambassador  to 
confer  with  the  Czarina  of  Russia  and  Frederick  of  Prussia ;  but 
Frederick  was  indignant  at  the  treatment  he  had  received  at  the 
peace,  and  could  place  no  reliance  on  a  policy  so  subject  to  the 
consequences  of  ministerial  change.  There  is  a  strong  testimony 
to  the  rare  powers  of  lord  Chatham's  mind,  at  an  early  period  of 
his  administration.  Charles  Townshend  for  the  first  time  attended 
the  Cabinet  as  Chancellor  of  the  Exchequer,  when  the  great  states- 
man developed  his  views  of  the  position  of  Europe.  "  Mr.  Town- 
shend," says  the  duke  of  Graf  ton  in  his  Memoirs,  "  was  particularly 
astonished  ;  and  owned  to  me,  as  I  was  carrying  him  home  in  my 
carriage,  that  lord  Chatham  had  just  shown  us  what  inferior  ani- 
mals we  were,  and  that  much  as  we  had  seen  of  him  before,  he  did 
not  conceive  till  that  night  his  superiority  to  be  so  very  transcend- 
ent." The  minister  contemplated  important  changes  in  the  gov- 
ernment of  Ireland.  "  To  enable  himself  to  contend  with  the 
powerful  connections  there,  he  proposed  to  establish  himself  upon 
the  basis  of  a  just  popularity,  by  shortening  the  duration  of  Parlia- 
ment, and  granting  other  measures  which  the  Irish  appeared  to 
have  most  at  heart."  *  Lord  Chatham  also  had  in  view  organic 
changes  in  the  constitution  of  the  East  India  Company — their  as- 
tonishing dominipn  having  now  become  an  anomaly  in  the  absence 
of  government  control,  and  their  vast  revenues  the  means  of  ad- 
ministering to  private  rapacity  and  injustice. 

The  Administration  entered  upon  its  duties  at  a  period  of 
domestic  trouble.  The  season  was  one  of  extreme  wetness.  The 
harvest  failed ;  and  riots  attended  the  rising  price  of  corn.  But 
the  price  had  not  quite  reached  the  point  at  which  exportation  was 
forbidden.  By  an  Order  in  Council  an  embargo  was  laid  on  ex- 
portation. The  Parliament  had  not  been  called  together,  as  it 
might  have  been,  to  sanction  the  measure,  which  came  into  opera- 
tion on  the  24th  of  September.  Parliament  met,  according  to  the( 
date  of  its  prorogation,  on  the  nth  of  November.  The  first  ap- 

*  Letter  from  Lord  Camden  ;  quoted  from  the  MS.  by  sir  Denis  Le  Marchant,  in  not» 
ko  Walpole's  "  George  III.,  "  vol.  Hi.  p.  in. 


100  HISTORY   OF    ENGLAND. 

pearance  of  Chatham  in  the  House  of  Lords  was  to  defend  the 
Order  in  Council  on  the  ground  of  public  necessity.  Camden  and 
others  in  both  Houses  maintained  its  legality.  Fierce  debates 
ensued,  in  which  this  exercise  of  the  prerogative  was  compared  to 
former  unconstitutional  attempts  to  set  up  a  dispensing  power.  It 
was  thought  essential  to  mark  that  such  an  exertion  of  the  pre- 
rogative was  not  constitutional.  An  Act  of  Indemnity  was  there- 
fore passed  to  exonerate  those  who  had  advised,  and  acted  upon, 
the  Order  in  Council.  A  Parliamentary  inquiry  into  the  affairs  of 
the  East  India  Company  was  now  forced  on  by  Chatham,  in  op- 
position to  the  wishes  of  several  of  his  colleagues.  He  refused 
to  impart  to  them  the  nature  and  extent  of  his  plans.  Several  of 
the  Rockingham  party  resolved  to  secede  from  him.  He  had  to 
form  new  combinations  of  public  men ;  and  to  quiet  the  appre- 
hensions of  those  who  were  accused  of  being  despotically  governed 
by  him.  During  the  Christmas  recess  Chatham  went  to  Bath, 
where  he  became  seriously  ill.  Parliament  assembled,  and  the 
prime  minister  was  not  in  his  place.  His  Cabinet  fell  into  disor- 
der. The  fatal  effects  of  the  absence  of  the  chief,  and  his  unwil- 
lingness to  entrust  responsibility  to  his  colleagues,  were  signally 
manifested,  when  the  Chancellor  of  the  Exchequer  commended 
the  Stamp  Act,  and  again  proposed  to  tax  the  Colonies.  Burke 
has  described  in  his  Speech  upon  American  Taxation,  this  strange 
disorganization  of  lord  Chatham's  ministry.  "  When  his  face  was 
hid  but  for  a  moment,  his  whole  system  was  on  a  wide  sea,  with- 
out chart  or  compass.  ...  As  if  it  were  to  insult  as  well  as  be- 
tray him,  even  long  before  the  close  of  the  first  Session  of  his  Ad- 
ministration, when  everything  was  publicly  transacted,  and  with 
great  parade,  in  his  name,  they  made  an  Act  declaring  it  highly 
just  and  expedient  to  raise  a  revenue  in  America.  For  even  then, 
sir,  even  before  this  splendid  orb  was  entirely  set,  and  while  the 
western  horizon  was  in  a  blaze  with  his  descending  glory,  on  the 
opposite  quarter  of  the  heavens  arose  another  luminary,  and,  for 
his  hour,  became  lord  of  the  ascendant.  You  understand,  to  be 
sure,  that  I  speak  of  Charles  Townshend,  officially  the  reproducer 
of  this  fatal  scheme." 

That  portion  of  the  life  of  Chatham  when  he  was  nominally  the 
head  of  the  Administration,  but  wholly  incapable  of  directing  the 
national  affairs,  and  altogether  shrinking  from  that  direction,  is  as 
difficult  to  understand  as  it  is  melancholy  to  contemplate.  In  the 
beginning  of  1 767,  when  the  Parliament  met,  he  was  ill  at  Bath.  In 
the  middle  of  February,  the  gout  had  returned  so  severely  upon  him 
as  to  confine  him  to  his  bed  at  the  inn  at  Marlborough, — as  he 


CHATHAM  S    ILLNESS.  IOI 

writes  to  lord  Shelburne  by  the  hands  of  his  secretary.  In  that 
inn  he  is  described  by  Walpole  as  "  inaccessible  and  invisible,  though 
surrounded  by  a  train  of  domestics  that  occupied  the  whole  inn,  and 
wore  the  appearance  of  a  little  court."  *  Here  he  remained  a  fort- 
night. The  duke  of  Grafton  earnestly  entreats  to  be  allowed  to 
come  to  the  earl  of  Chatham.  The  answer  is,  that  "until  he  is 
able  to  move  towards  London,  it  is  by  no  means  practicable  to  him 
to  enter  into  discussions  of  business."  On  the  2nd  of  March  he 
came  to  town,  but  unable  to  stir  hand  or  foot.  At  this  time  the 
minis  try  had  been  in  a  minority  upon  the  question  whether  the 
Land  Tax  should  be  reduced  in  amount.  The  king  writes  to  Chat- 
ham expressing  his  reliance  upon  him  "  to  withstand  that  evil  called 
connexion,"  to  which  his  majesty  attributes  the  defeat  of  the  min- 
istry. Chatham  responds  reverentially.  Meanwhile  the  public 
business  falls  into  confusion  ;  a  violent  Opposition,  a  divided  Min- 
istry. From  the  beginning  of  April  the  prime  minister  had  not 
been  allowed  to  see  any  one,  nor  to  receive  letters.  It  was  in  vain 
that  his  colleagues  desired  to  visit  him.  Business,  said  Chatham, 
was  impossible  for  him.  Again  and  again  the  king  wrote  affection- 
ately to  his  minister ;  and  at  last  said, "  If  you  cannot  come  to  me  to- 
morrow, I  am  ready  to  call  on  you."  As  an  interview  less  to  be  dread- 
ed, Chatham  consented  to  receive  the  duke  of  Grafton.  The  duke 
records  in  his  Memoirs  that  he  found  him  in  a  different  state  from 
what  he  expected.  "  His  nerves  and  spirits  were  affected  in  a  dread- 
ful degree,  and  the  sight  of  his  great  mind  bowed  down  and  thus 
weakened  by  disorder  would  have  filled  me  with  grief  and  concern, 
even  if  I  had  not  long  borne  a  sincere  attachment  to  his  person  and 
character."  The  Session  closed  on  the  2nd  of  July.  The  duke  of 
Grafton  was  now  the  real  minister ;  although  the  name  of  Chatham 
in  some  degree  upheld  the  government. 

A  theory  has  been  proposed,  in  a  review  of  the  Chatham  Cor- 
respondence,  that  the  illness  of  the  great  minister  was  a  long  series 
of  pretences — "  that  the  gout,  whatever  may  have  been  its  real 
severity,  was  exaggerated  in  order  to  excuse  a  line  of  conduct,  for 
which,  even  if  true,  it  would  have  furnished  no  excuse  ;  " — that  the 
gout  was  a  frequent  pretext ; — that  the  desire  of  lord  Chatham  to,have 
apowerof  attorney  prepared  in  order  to  enable  his  lady  to  transact  his 
private  business  was  a  blind ; " — that  his  disappointment  at  his  loss  of 
popularity,  and  his  regret  at  having  descended  from  his  proud  posi- 
tion of  the  Great  Commoner,  made  him  reluctant  to  appear  in  his  new 

*"  George  III.,"  vol.  in.  p.  416.  The  statement  in  the  "  Edinburgh  Review,"  vol. 
Ixxx.,  that  Chatham  insisted  that  during  his  stay  all  the  waiters  and  stable-boys  of  the  inn 
should  wear  his  livery,  is  contradicted  by  lord  Mahon,  on  the  authority  of  the  late  Mr. 
Thomas  Grenville. 


102  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

character,  and  that  he  clung  to  office  till  he  could  find  some  striking 
and  popular  occasion  for  his  resignation.*  Never  was  ingenuity  more 
absurdly  exercised  for  the  purpose  of  damaging  a  great  man's  charac- 
ter. The  true  solution  of  this  mystery  is,  that  the  intellect  of  Chat- 
ham was  temporarily  enfeebled,  almost  destroyed ;  that  he  did  not  re- 
sign office,  although  incapable  of  performing  its  duties,  because  the 
ordinary  perceptions  of  his  mind  were  clouded  to  an  extent  that  left 
him  no  power  of  judgment ;  and  that  when  he  did  resign,  in  Octo- 
ber, 1768,  on  account  of  "the  deplorable  state  of  his  health,"  his 
mind  had  to  some  extent  resumed  its  vigour,  though  his  bodily 
infirmities  were  as  great  as  ever.  His  condition  during  the  con- 
tinuance of  his  mental  prostration  is  thus  described  :  "  Lord  Chat- 
ham's state  of  health  is  certainly  the  lowest  dejection  and  debility 
that  mind  or  body  can  be  in.  He  sits  all  the  day  leaning  on  his  hands, 
which  he  supports  on  the  table  ;  does  not  permit  any  person  to  remain 
in  the  room ;  knocks  when  he  wants  anything ;  and  having  made  his 
wants  known,  gives  a  signal,  without  speaking,  to  the  person  who 
answered  his  call,  to  retire."  f  He  had  sold  his  property  at  Hayes, 
and  was  removed  to  Burton-Pynsent,a  valuable  estate  he  had  acquired 
under  the  will  of  sir  William  Pynsent.  With  the  intense  eagerness 
of  a  mind  verging  on  insanity,  his  one  idea  was  to  re-purchase 
Hayes..  Difficulties  were  naturally  raised ;  and  he  resigned  himself 
to  his  disappointment,  saying  "  That  might  have  saved  me."  But 
the  re-purchase  was  effected;  and  for  many  months  he  dwelt  there 
secluded  from  all  mankind.  Lord  Chatham,  according  to  Walpole, 
under  an  attack  of  the  gout,  had  put  himself  into  the  hands  of  Dr. 
Addington — "innovating  enough  in  his  practice  to  be  justly  deemed 
a  quack If  all  was  not  a  farce,  I  should  think  the  physi- 
cian rather  caused  the  disease ;  Addington  having  kept  off  the  gout, 
and  possibly  dispersed  it  through  his  nerves,  or  even  driven  it  up 
to  his  head."  J  If  all  was  a  farce,  it  was  a  long  farce  to  occupy 
more  than  a  year  in  playing  out. 

The  ministry  struggled  on  with  considerable  difficulty  through 
the  Session  of  1768.  There  had  been  many  changes  in  its  com- 
position. Charles  Townshend  had  died  of  fever.  His  brilliant 
talents  were  neutralized  by  his  levity ;  and  it  was  clear  that  if  his 
ambition  had  placed  him  at  the  head  of  the  government,  he  would 
have  done  some  rash  things — perhaps  precipitated  a  war  with  Ameri- 
ca earlier  than  the  nobleman,  lord  North,  who  succeeded  Townshend 
as  the  Chancellor  of  Exchequer.  The  Parliament,  now  approach- 
ing the  end  of  its  septennial  term,  was  dissolved  on  the  nth  of 
March,  1768. 

*  "  Quarterly  Review,"  vol.  Ixvi.  p.  251. 

t  Letter  in  Lord  Lyttehon's  "  Memoirs."  t  "  George  III.,"  vol.  ii.  p.  451. 


NEW   PARLIAMENT.  103 


CHAPTER  VI. 

New  Parliament.— Non-publication  of  Debates. — Wilkes  returned  for  Middlesex. — 
Riots. — Sentence  upon  Wilkes. — His  expulsions  from  Parliament  and  re-elections. — 
Debates  on  the  privileges  of  the  Commons. — The  letters  of  Junius. — Personalities  of 
Junius. — His  attacks  on  the  duke  of  Grafton. — Private  letters  of  Junius. — His  attack 
on  the  duke  of  Bedford. — Address  of  Junius  to  the  king. — Opening  of  Parliament — 
Lord  Chatham. — Chatham's  speech  on  the  Address. — Schism  in  the  Ministry. — Lo.d 
Camden  disclaims  their  measures. — Resignation  of  the  duke  of  Grafton. 

THE  new  Parliament  was  opened  on  the  loth  of  May,  1768.  In 
this  most  important  Session  the  non-publication  of  debates  was  en- 
forced with  almost  unequalled  strictness.  Horace  Walpole  has, 
for  some  years,  been  to  us  the  almost  only  authority  for  forming 
any  notion  of  the  debating  power  in  an  age  of  real  oratory,  if  we 
may  judge  of  its  rhetorical  excellence  from  the  testimony  of  con- 
temporaries. He  is  not  now  a  member  of  "  the  Thirteenth  Parlia- 
ment of  Great  Britain."  He  says,  "  What  traces  of  debates  shall 
appear  hereafter  must  be  mutilated  and  imperfect,  as  being  received 
by  hearsay  from  others  or  taken  from  notes  communicated  to  me."  * 
The  rigid  enforcement  of  the  Standing  Order  for  the  exclusion  of 
strangers  went  on  from  1768  to  1774 — the  whole  term  of  the  duration 
of  this  Parliament,  thus  known  as  the  "  Unreported  Parliament." 
But  the  debates  of  the  House  of  Commons  in  this  stirring  period 
were  not  "  unreported."  Mr.  Cavendish  (afterwards  sir  Henry 
Cavendish),  member  for  Lostwithiel,  not  only  devoted  himself  to  the 
task  of  taking  down  the  heads  of  speeches,  but  after  some  practice, 
attempted  to  report  them  "  more  at  large."  These  most  valuable 
notes  have  been  the  foundation  of  the  collection  edited  by  Mr.  J. 
Wright,  as  "  Sir  Henry  Cavendish's  Debates ;  "  but,  probably  from 
inadequate  public  encouragement,  these  Reports,  in  their  printed 
form,  do  not  extend  beyond  March  27,  I77i.f 

At  the  opening  of  Parliament  the  ministry  comprised  lord  Cam- 
den,  Lord  Chancellor;  the  duke  of  Grafton,  First  Lord  of  the 
Treasury ;  lord  Shelburne,  Secretary  of  State  ;  lord  North,  Chan- 
cellor of  the  Exchequer.  Lord  Chatham  still  held  the  Privy  Seal^ 
but  continued  unable  to  discharge  any  official  duties.  It  was  the 

*  "  Memoirs  of  George  III.,"  vol.  iii.  p.  180. 

t  Published  in  Parts,  in  1843,  and  forming  two  volumes,  the  second  of  which  is  incom- 
plete. 


104.  HISTORY   OF    ENGLAND. 

duke  of  Grafton's  ministry.  The  new  Parliament  commenced  in  a 
tempest  of  popular  violence,  such  as  had  been  unwitnessed  in  Eng- 
land for  many  years.  John  Wilkes,  an  outlaw,  suddenly  returned 
from  France,  at  the  time  when  the  writs  had  been  issued  for  a 
general  election,  and  he  declared  himself  a  candidate  for  the  city 
of  London.  He  was  lowest  on  the  poll,  there  being  four  aldermen 
in  nomination,  who  had  the  suffrages  of  most  decent  citizens. 
Wilkes  then  proposed  himself  as  a  candidate  for  the  county  of 
Middlesex.  The  ministry  were  unwilling  to  proceed  against  him 
on  his  outlawry  ;  and  the  Whigs,  generally,  could  not  well  forget 
that  he  had  been  their  tool.  The  demagogue  was  returned  as 
member  for  Middlesex  ;  and  his  triumph  was  celebrated  by  illumi- 
nations and  riots.  On  the  2oth  of  April,  being  the  first  day  of  term, 
Wilkes,  according  to  a  promise  he  had  given,  surrendered  to  his 
outlawry,  and  was  committed  to  custody.  A  violent  mob  rescued 
their  favourite  from  the  offcers  of  the  court ;  but  he  had  the  pru- 
dence to  get  away  from  them,  and  surrender  himself  at  the  King's 
Bench  prison.  Riots  daily  took  place  in  the  neighbourhood  of 
Wilkes's  place  of  confinement.  On  the  loth  of  May,  a  vast 
concourse  of  people  assembled  in  St.  George's  Fields,  to  con- 
vey the  member  for  Middlesex  to  his  seat  in  the  House,  which 
it  was  thought  he  would  then  take  in  virtue  of  his  privilege. 
The  riot  act  was  read  when  the  mob  assailed  the  prison-gates  ; 
and  the  military  being  called  in,  five  or  six  j  e .-sons  lost  their 
lives,  and  many  were  wounded.  The  magistrate  who  gave  the 
order  to  fire  was  tried  and  acquitted.  On  the  nth  of  May  a  royal 
proclamation  was  issued  "for  suppressing  riots,  tumults,  and  other 
unlawful  assemblies."  There  were  other  causes  of  tumult  than  the 
political  agitations  connected  with  Wilkes.  Seamen  from  vessels 
in  the  Thames  were  parading  the  streets,  demanding  increase  of 
wages ;  and  having  interfered  with  the  unloading  of  colliers,  the 
coalheavers  took  part  against  the  sailors,  and  were  fighting  with 
them  in  the  public  thoroughfares.  The  coalheavers  had  their  own 
especial  grievance,  having  by  Act  of  Parliament  been  subjected  to 
the  jurisdiction  of  the  alderman  of  the  ward.  An  alehouse-keeper 
of  the  name  of  Green  had  given  offence  to  the  coalheavers.  who 
were  chiefly  Irish ;  and  they  vowed  his  destruction.  Walpole  re- 
lates their  proceedings,  as  "  the  fiercest  and  most  memorable  of 
ill  the  tumults/'  His  narrative  shows  the  lawlessness  of  the  metrop- 
olis ninety  years  ago.  Green,  Walpole  says,  "  every  night  removed 
bis  wife  and-  children  out  of  his  house.  One  evening  he  received 
notice  that  the  coalheavers  were  coming  to  attack  him.  He  had 
nobody  with  him  but  a  maid-servant  and  a  sailor,  who  by  accident 


SENTENCE  UPON  WILKES.  105 

was  drinking  in  the  house.  Green  asked  the  sailor  if  he  would 
assist  him.  '  Yes,'  answered  the  generous  tar,  '  I  will  defend  any 
man  in  distress.'  At  eight  the  rioters  appeared,  and  fired  on  the 
house,  lodging  in  one  room  above  two  hundred  bullets  ;  and  when 
their  ammunition  was  spent  they  bought  pewter  pots,  cut  them  to 
pieces,  and  fired  them  as  a  ball.  At  length  with  an  axe  they  broke  out 
the  bottom  of  the  door ;  but  that  breach  the  sailor  defended  singly ; 
while  Green  and  his  maid  kept  up  a  constant  fire,  and  killed  eigh- 
teen of  the  besiegers.  Their  powder  and  ball  being  at  last  wasted, 
Green  said  he  must  make  his  escape;  'for  you/ he  said  to  the 
friendly  sailor,  '  they  will  not  hurt  you.'  Green,  retiring  from  the 
back  room  of  his  house,  got  into  a  carpenter's  yard  and  was  con- 
cealed in  a  sawpit,  over  which  the  mob  passed  in  their  pursuit  of 
him,  being  told  he  was  gone  forwards."  During  nine  hours,  whilst 
this  tumult  was  going  on,  no  police  or  military  interfered.  Green 
was  tried  for  murder  and  was  acquitted.  Seven  of  the  coalheavers 
were  executed ;  but  the  revenge  of  their  associates  did  not  cease, 
•for  they  murdered  Green's  sister.  The  brave  sailor  "  never  owned 
himself;  never  claimed  honour  or  recompense  for  his  generous 
gallantry."* 

The  only  real  business  in  the  first  short  Session  of  the  new 
Parliament  was  to  continue  the  Act  prohibiting  the  exportation  of 
corn  and  flour,  The  Houses  adjourned  after  sitting  only  ten  days, 
and  the  Parliament  was  afterwards  prorogued.  Colonel  Luttrell 
on  the  loth  of  May  had  moved  "that  the  proper  officer  of  the 
Crown  do  inform  the  House,  why  the  laws  were  not  immediately 
put  in  force  against  John  Wilkes,  Esq.,  an  outlaw ;  ''  but  the 
Speaker  held  that  the  motion  could  not  be  entertained.  The  par- 
liament did  not  re-assemble  till  the  8th  of  November ;  but  the  case 
of  John  Wilkes  had  been  kept  alive  in  the  public  mind  by  the  legal 
proceedings  against  him.  Lord  Mansfield,  in  June,  delivered  judg- 
ment in  the  Court  of  King's  Bench,  that  the  outlawry  of  Mr.  Wilkes 
was  null  and  void,  through  a  defect  in  the  pleadings ;  but  the  origi- 
nal judgment  against  him  for  libels  was  sufficient,  and  he  was 
sentenced  to  two  years'  imprisonment,  and  to  two  fines  of  foo/. 
There  were  illuminations  in  the  Strand  on  the  27th  of  October,  in 
honour  of  Wilkes's  birth-day.  On  the  2nd  of  January,  1769,  he 
was  elected  alderman  of  the  ward  of  Farringdon  Without ;  and 
subsequently,  some  informality  having  been  found  in  the  proceed- 
ings, he  was  re-elected.  He  was  to  be  raised  to  the  highest 
pinnacle  of  popularity  by  the  contest  in  which  the  government, 
acting  through  the  House  of  Commons,  now  became  engaged  with 

*  "  Memoirs  of  George  III.,"  vol.  iii.- p.  zig. 


106  HISTORY   OF    ENGLAND. 

the  prisoner  in  the  King's  Bench  who  had  been  elected  member  for 
Middlesex.  On  the  I4th  of  November,  a  petition  to  the. Commons 
•was  presented  from  Mr.  Wilkes  "  for  redress  of  his  grievances." 
The  proceedings  upon  this  petition  occupied  much  time ;  and  the 
House  of  Commons  appeared  eager  to  raise  another  issue,  upon  a 
complaint  in  the  House  of  Peers  of  Lord  Weymouth,  the  Secretary 
of  State,  that  Wilkes  had  published  a  libel  against  himself.  The 
Commons,  after  a  conference  with  the  Lords,  took  this  matter  in 
hand;  summoned  Wilkes  to  their  bar  in  custody;  and  received  his 
defiance  in  the  assertion  that  he  was  the  author  of  the  paper  com- 
plained of,  and  that  he  gloried  in  it.  The  House  decided  that  this 
was  an  insolent,  scandalous,  and  seditious  libel.  On  the  3rd  of 
February,  lord  Barrington  moved  that  John  Wilkes,  having  con- 
fessed himself  the  author  of  what  the  House  had  deemed  to  be  a 
libel,  and  being  also  under  sentence  for  other  seditious,  obscene, 
and  impious  libels,  be  expelled.  The  motion  was  carried  by  a 
majority  of  eighty-two  ;  and  a  new  writ  was  moved  for  Middlesex. 
The  sentence  of  expulsion  was  resisted  by  the  minority  upon  con- 
stitutional grounds ;  and  upon  the  same  principle  Wilkes  was  re- 
elected  unanimously.  The  election  was  declared  null  and  void  by 
a  majority  in  the  Commons  of  a  hundred  and  forty-six.  Again  the 
freeholders  of  Middlesex  resolved  to  set  at  nought  the  decision  of 
Parliament.  The  rights  of  electors  were  considered  to  be  violated. 
Large  sums  were  subscribed  to  carry  on  this  dangerous  battle  be- 
tween the  people  and  their  representatives.  The  whole  kingdom 
was  in  agitation.  Wilkes  was  a  third  time  elected ;  and  it  was 
voted,  that  having  been  expelled  the  House  he  was  incapacitated 
for  election.  The  government  now  provided  a  candidate  who 
would  not  shrink  from  opposing  the  popular  favourite.  Colonel 
Luttrell  vacated  his  seat,  and  stood  for  the  metropolitan  county. 
On  the  1 3th  of  April,  without  any  tumult,  Wilkes  was  a  fourth  time 
returned  by  a  very  large  majority.  The  House  of  Commons  now 
decided  by  a  majority  of  fifty-four,  that  Luttrell  should  have  been 
returned,  and  not  Wilkes,  and  that  Luttrell  should  take  his  seat. 
The  king,  in  April,  1768,  had  urged  upon  lord  North  the  necessity 
for  the  expulsion  of  Wilkes  ;  and  on  this  last  decision  of  the  House 
he  congratulated  the  Chancellor  of  the  Exchequer  upon  "  the  very 
honourable  issue  of  the  debate."  His  majesty  added,  "  the  House 
has,  with  becoming  dignity,  supported  their  own  privileges,  with- 
out which  they  cannot  subsist,  and  it  is  now  my  duty  to  see  the 
laws  obeyed." 

King,  Lords,  and  Commons,  were   now  committed  to  what  was 
deemed  a  warfare  against  the  people,  and  a  violation  of  constitu- 


DEBATE   ON   THE   PRIVILEGES   OF   THE   COMMONS.         107 

tional  rights.  Sober  statesmen  were  alarmed.  Granby  and  Con- 
way  staid  away  from  Parliament  on  the  motion  for  the  expulsion  of 
Wilkes.  "  Having  declared  against  violent  measures  they  would 
not  concur  in  it ;  and  disapproving  Wilkes's  attacks  on  the  govern- 
ment, they  would  not  defend  him."*  Dunning  took  the  same 
course.  When  lord  Barrington  moved  the  expulsion,  George 
Grenville,  during  whose  administration  Wilkes  had  been  first 
arrested  for  the  libel  in  the  "  North  Briton,"  delivered  a  speech 
which  may  even  now  be  read  with  admiration  for  its  grave  wisdom. 
He  denied,  in  the  strongest  terms,  the  legality  and  the  prudence 
of  the  proposed  measure. f  Burke  brought  all  the  force  of  his 
eloquence  to  contend  against  the  manifest  disposition  of  the 
House.  One  sentence  would  not  be  readily  forgotten  :  "  The  late 
hour  of  the  night — the  candles — all  put  me  in  mind  of  the  repre- 
sentation of  the  last  act  of  a  tragi-comedy,  performed  by  his 
majesty's  servants,  by  desire  of  several  persons  of  distinction,  for 
the  benefit  of  Mr.  Wilkes,  and  at  the  expense  of  the  constitution."  J 
The  conclusion  of  his  speech  pointed  to  the  impending  danger : 
"  I  dread  the  consequences  of  this  violent  struggle  between  the 
two  tides  of  power  and  popularity."  The  House  went  on  debating, 
with  more  or  less  energy,  on  every  occasion  when  the  re-election 
of  Wilkes  was  the  subject  of  controversy.  On  the  I5th  of  April, 
upon  the  motion  for  declaring  colonel  Luttrell  member  for  Middle- 
sex, instead  of  Mr.  Wilkes,  the  discussion  was  conducted  with  a 
heat  that  manifested  how  the  passions  even  of  temperate  men  had 
become  committed  to  this  unhappy  contest.  Alderman  Beckford 
having  been  interrupted  by  Mr.  Onslow  in  saying  that  "  he  appre- 
hended a  Resolution  of  the  House  of  Commons  was  not  the  law  of 
the  land,"  George  Grenville  rose  to  the  point  of  order,  and  with 
great  animation  exclaimed,  "  Sir,  the  man  who  will  contend  that  a 
Resolution  of  the  House  of  Commons  is  the  law  of  the  land,  is  a 
most  violent  enemy  of  his  country,  be  he  who  or  what  he  will." 
His  emotion  was  so  great  that  on  the  conclusion  of  his  short 
speech,  "  Mr.  Grenville  spat  blood."  §  On  the  same  evening, 
Charles  Fox,  who  had  not  then  attained  his  majority,  made  his 
first  speech,  in  favour  of  the  government.  The  debut  of  the  "  man 
of  the  people  "  of  after  times  was  not  promising.  He  said  that 
"  the  contest  was  between  the  House  of  Commons  and  the  lowest 
scum  of  the  people."  Burke  replied,  in  terms  which  probably  sank 
deep  into  the  mind  of  the  young  man,  who  was  then  renowned  only 

*  Walpole — "  George  III.,"  vol.  iii.  p.  317. 

t  Reported  in  full  in  tha  "  Cavendish  Debates,"  vol.  i.  pp.  159  to  176. 

t  "  Cavendish  Debates,"  vol.  i.  p.  180.  §  Ibid.,  p.  37. 


I08  HISTORY   OF   ENGLAND. 

for  his  extravagance  :  "  Sir,  if  party  distinction  is  to  be  raised  up 
in  this  country  between  the  gentlemen  and  those  who  have  this 
evening  been  called  beggarly — if  such  a  party  should  ever  arise — 
woe  betide  the  gentlemen  !  If,  dabbling  in  intrigues,  they  make 
themselves  contemptible  and  useless,  they  will  never  be  re- 
spected the  active,  industrious,  those  who  labour,  will  get  before 
them."  *  On  the  8th  of  May,  there  was  a  debate  on  the  petition 
against  the  return  of  colonel  Luttrell,  when  the  question  that  he 
was  duly  elected  was  affirmed  by  a  majority  of  sixty-nine.  On  that 
occasion,  Mr.  Henry  Cavendish  said,  "  I  lay  it  down  as  a  principle 
that  no  Order  of  the  House  of  Commons  can  make  a  minority  a 
majority ;  that  no  Resolution  of  the  House  of  Commons  can  ever 
make  Mr.  Luttrell  the  legal  representative  of  the  county  of  Middle- 
sex :  for  I  do,  from  my  soul,  abhor,  detest,  and  abjure,  as  uncon- 
stitutional and  illegal,  that  damnable  doctrine  and  position,  that  a 
Resolution  of  the  House  of  Commons  can  make,  alter,  suspend, 
abrogate,  or  annihilate  the  law  of  the  land."  f  The  next  day, 
seventy  members  dined  together  at  the  Thatched  House  Tavern, 
when  one  of  the  toasts  was  "  Mr.  Cavendish's  creed."  Another  toast 
was,  "  The  first  edition  of  Dr.  Blackstone's  Commentaries  on  the 
Laws  of  England. "f  The  allusion  was  to  the  debate  of  the  pre- 
vious night.  Blackstone,  then  Solicitor-General  to  the  queen,  had 
declared  that  the  legal  incapacity  of  Wilkes  to  sit  in  that  House 
was  established  by  the  Common  Law  ;  and  Grenville  said,  "  I 
greatly  prefer  the  opinion  given  by  the  learned  gentleman  in  his 
work  on  the  Laws  of  England,  to  what  fell  from  him  this  evening  ;  " 
and  then  quoted  a  passage  from  the  Commentaries  as  to  the  quali- 
fications of  persons  to  be  elected. § 

Whilst  this  contest  was  going  on  in  Parliament,  the  attention 
of  the  town,  and  very  soon  of  the  whole  nation,  was  turned  to  an 
anonymous  writer  in  the  "  Public  Advertiser,"  who,  under  the  sig- 
nature of  "  Junius,"  commenced  a  series  of  attacks  upon  persons 
of  high  station,  that  formed,  by  their  fearlessness  as  well  as  their 
ability,  a  striking  contrast  to  the  ordinary  communications  to  news- 
papers. There  had  been  many  previous  letters  in  the  same  paper, 
printed  and  conducted  by  Mr.  Henry  Sampson  Woodfall,  which, 
from  their  personalities,  had  made  some  noise.  Many  of  these, 
signed  Poplicola,  Anti-Sejanus.  jun.,  Correggio,  Mnemon,  Lucius, 
Atticus,  have  been  ascribed  to  the  same  writer ;  but  it  has  been 
maintained  very  convincingly,  in  successive  articles  in  the  "  Athe- 

*  "  Cavendish  Debates,"  vol.  i.  p.  383.  t  Ibid.,  p.  438. 

\  "  Chatham  Correspondence,"  vol.iii.  p.  360. 
J  "  Cavendish  Debates,"  vol.  i.  p.  430. 


THE    LETTERS   OF   JUNIUS.  109 

nasum,"  that,  although  included  in  the  edition  of  Junius  of  1812, 
the  theory  of  their  coming  from  one  and  the  same  pen,  is  not  to 
be  accepted  without  large  qualification.  Nevertheless,  careful 
inquirers,  amongst  whom  is  lord  Mahon,  think  they  would  not 
have  appeared  in  WoodfalPs  edition  without  some  good  authority. 
These  letters  abound  with  very  choice  figures  of  speech,  which 
have  a  remarkable  resemblance  to  the  undoubted  writings  of  Junius. 
Lord  Chatham,  in  the  spring  of  1767,  is  "a  man  purely  and  per- 
fectly bad," — "a grand  vizier," — one  who  had  accepted  "a  share  of 
power  under  a  pernicious  court  minion."  In  the  autumn,  Chatham 
is  "  a  lunatic  brandishing  a  crutch."  Camden  is  a  judge,  with  the 
laws  of  England  under  his  feet,  and  "  before  his  distorted  vision  a 
dagger  which  marshals  him  the  way  to  the  murder  of  the  constitu- 
tion." Beastliness  and  brutality  characterize  these  productions, 
in  many  instances.  Profaneness  is  common  enough.  So  far  these 
letters  agree  with  those  of  Junius.  They  agree  also  in  the  few 
political  principles  which  we  find  amidst  their  scurrility.  Those 
who  contended  against  the  justice  and  policy  of  taxing  the  North 
American  colonies,  were  "  a  particular  set  of  men  base  and  treach- 
erous enough  to  have  enlisted  under  the  banners  of  a  lunatic,  to 
whom  they  sacrificed  their  honour,  their  conscience,  and  their 
country, — the  wretched  ministers  who  served  at  the  altar,  whilst 
the  high  priest  himself,  with  more  than  frantic  fury,  offered  up  his 
bleeding  country  a  victim  to  America."  On  the  5th  of  April,  1768, 
the  return  of  Wilkes  to  England  offered  a  favourable  occasion  for 
a  new  attack  to  be  opened  against  the  ministry  of  the  duke  of 
Grafton,  under  the  signature  of  C.,  which  Junius  adopted  in  his 
private  correspondence  with  his  printer.  Wilkes  was  now  the 
object  of  his  most  rancorous  abuse — "  a  most  infamous  character 
in  private  life."  The  ministry  were  responsible  for  this  outlaw 
being  at  large.  "  We  are  still  strong  enough  to  defend  our  lives 
and  properties  against  Mr.  Wilkes  and  his  banditti."  Within  a 
year  there  was  no  man  more  zealous  than  Junius  in  an  endeavour 
to  stimulate  this  banditti  into  those  acts  of  violence  which  are  the 
natural  consequence  of  writings  which  rouse  the  passions  by  un- 
measured personalities.  He  made  no  attempts  to  sustain  the  peo- 
ple in  a  temperate  assertion  of  their  rights ;  or  to  bring  the  powers 
of  argument  to  deter  those  who  were  invading  those  rights.  His 
mode  of  proceeding  has  its  admirers,  as  we  learn  from  his  last 
idolater:  "Junius  had  a  busier  mission  than  that  of  writing  pane- 
gyrics on  principles, — or  didactic  essays  on  axiomatic  politics  .  .  . 
Principle,  in  those  days,  if  not  practised,  being  at  least  understood, 
Junius  was,  in  my  judgment,  right  in  applying  his  vast  powers 


110  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

rather  to  the  chastisement  of  wrong-doers,  than  to  theoretical  dis- 
quisitions on  wrongs  done."  * 

It  is  more  than  forty  years  ago  since  the  author  of  this  History 
was  induced  diligently  to  read  the  "  Letters  of  Junius."  The  elab- 
orate edition  by  Woodfall  was  then  recently  published ;  but  to  a 
youth  it  was  more  important  that,  as  a  "  British  Classic,"  Junius 
could  be  carried  about  as  a  pocket  volume.  Little  more  than  forty 
years  had  passed  since  the  victims  of  Junius  were  guiding  the  des- 
tinies of  the  nation.  The  "  great  personage  "  whom  he  had  assailed 
with  unexampled  boldness  was  still  alive,  although  utterly  insensi- 
ble to  what  opinions  might  be  held  of  the  honesty  of  his  arch- 
enemy. Probably  the  study  of  Junius  as  a  master  of  invective 
was  seriously  damaging  to  our  capacity  for  forming  a  correct 
judgment  of  the  public  men  of  a  very  remarkable  period.  Cer- 
tainly it  required  a  much  more  intimate  acquaintance  with  the  real 
materials  for  an  impartial  view  of  national  affairs  than  were  then 
open  to  us,  to  divest  ourselves  of  a  lingering  confidence  that  these 
brilliant  epigrams  of  an  anonymous  assailant  of  the  great  had  not 
only  a  broad  foundation  of  truth  to  rest  upon,  but  were  substan- 
tially true.  Unquestionably  it  demanded  a  strong  exercise  of  the 
reasoning  faculty  not  to  be  seduced  by  the  fascination  of  the  mys- 
tery which  had  so  long  defied  an  absolute  solution.  It  was  more 
than  difficult  not  to  believe  that  this  man  in  the  mask  was  some 
grand  and  awful  magician,  endued  with  all-penetrating  knowledge, 
wondrous  ability,  and  irresistible  power.  The  tardy  conviction  at 
length  arrived  that,  whether  of  high  rank  or  of  humble,  a  senator 
or  a  garreteer,  a  minister  of  state  or  an  eavesdropper,  a  noble  lord 
in  a  blue  ribbon  or  an  office  clerk,  he  was,  taken  all  in  all,  one  of  the 
most  abandoned  of  anonymous  literary  assassins  ;  that  no  writer 
ever  more  abused  the  power  of  the  press  for  the  gratification  of 
his  "  envy,  hatred,  malice,  and  all  uncharitableness."  Again  we 
read  Junius,  now  that  we  have  to  write  of  Grafton,  Mansfield, 
Bedford,  whom  he  made  his  quarry.  When  we  now  see  that  his 
elaborately  pointed  periods  are  really  the  vehicle  of  anything 
higher  than  temporary  personalities  of  the  dirtiest  character  such 
as  a  gentleman  would  scorn,  and  of  dastardly  insinuations  such  as 
none  but  a  coward  could  utter  in  disguise,  we  care  not  to  trouble 
ourselves  about  the  solution  of  the  riddle  which  has  engaged  so 
many  acute  minds — Who  was  Junius  ?  We  are  content  with  ask- 
ing, What  was  Junius  ?  If  that  question  be  answered  in  accordance 
with  our  opinion  of  his  character,  we  may  arrive  at  one  safe  con« 
elusion — Who  Junius  was  not. 

"  William  Burke  the  Author  of  Junius."     By  J.  C.  Syraons.     1859. 


PERSONALITIES    OF   JUNIUS.  Ill 

Horace  Walpole  has  a  remark  upon  the  author  of  Junius,  which 
appears  to  have  been  overlooked  by  some  who  think  that  the  liter- 
ary merit  of  these  Letters  will  keep  their  moral  turpitude  in  the 
back-ground.  "  Men,"  he  says,  "  wondered  how  any  one  possessed 
of  such  talents  could  have  the  forbearance  to  write  in  a  manner  so 
desperate  as  to  prevent  his  ever  receiving  personal  applause  for  his 
writings :  the  venom  was  too  black  not  to  disgrace  even  his  ashes."* 
The  representatives  of  Sir  Philip  Francis  have  paraded  his  claims 
to  be  Junius,  as  if  he,  in  that  belief,  were  to  be  honoured  in  the 
dust.  The  letter  of  lady  Francis  to  lord  Campbell  is  an  earnest 
pleading  that  the  renown  of  being  the  author  of  Junius  shall  be 
allotted  to  her  deceased  husband,  f  When  the  able  editor  of  the 
"  Grenville  Papers,"  then  librarian  to  the  late  duke  of  Buckingham 
suggested  to  his  grace  "  the  possibility  that  lord  Temple  might 
have  been  the  author  of  Junius,"  although  the  duke  had  not  heard 
it  as  a  family  tradition,  he  "did  not  discourage  the  supposition." 
The  librarian  at  Stowe,  with  whom  the  honour  of  the  Grenvilles 
must  have  had  some  weight,  thus  encouraged,  writes  upwards  of 
two  hundred  pages  of  "  Notes  on  the  Authorship  of  Junius,"  which 
he  thus  concludes :  "  It  is  my  firm  and  deliberate  conviction,  that 
if  lord  Temple  were  not  the  author  of  Junius,  then  the  author  has 
never  yet  been  publicly  named."  J  The  writer  of  a  very  interest- 
ing article  in  the  "  Quarterly  Review,"  seeks  to  identify  Junius 
with  Thomas  lord  Lyttelton — the  "  profligate  lord  Lyttelton  "  as  he 
was  called, — not  more  by  the  remarkable  talents  of  this  young 
nobleman,  than  by  his  unquestionable  familiarity  with  the  gross 
excesses  and  base  insinuations  in  which  Junius  delighted  to  in- 
dulge ;  by  the  love  of  Junius  for  private  scandal,  picked  up  in  "  the 
haunts  of  refined  blackguardism  "  which  Thomas  Lyttelton  fre- 
quented^ If  "  the  venom  of  Junius  was  too  black  not  to  disgrace 
his  ashes  ; "  if  that  vanity  which  led  Junius  to  hold  that  his  Letters 
would  descend  to  posterity  in  company  with  the  Bible  had  some 
counterpart  in  the  intense  vanity  of  sir  Philip  Francis  ;  if  one  of 
the  resemblances  between  Junius  and  Temple  was,  that  the  most 
scurrilous  pamphlets  were  written  under  the  direction  of  this  ma- 
lignant friend  of  Wilkes  ;  if  to  be  plunged  in  the  grossest  sensual-- 
ity  was  one  proof  that  Lyttelton  was  Junius — how  will  these  attri- 
butes support  the  theory  of  some  of  his  contemporaries  that  Burke 
was  the  real  Junius ; — or  the  modified  hypothesis  now  put  forward, 

*  "  Memoirs  of  George  III.,"  vol.  iii.  p.  402. 

t  Printed  in  Campbell's  "  Chancellors,"  vol.  iv. — and  given  also  in  Bohn's  edition 
of  Junius,  vol.  ii.  p.  Ixii. 

t  "  Grenville  Papers,"  vol.  iii.  p.  ccxxxviii.  §  "  Quarterly  Review,"  vol.  xc. 


112  HISTORY   OF   ENGLAND. 

that  "  Edmund  Burke  in  all  probability  aided  William  in  writing 
Junius."  * 

In  noticing,  perhaps  more  fully  than  they  intrinsically  deserve, 
the  Letters  of  Junius,  it  is  our  chief  duty  to  regard  them  as  bear- 
ing upon,  and  in  connection  with,  the  history  of  their  time.  There 
can  be  no  doubt  that  they  had  some  influence  upon  the  movements 
of  party ;  terrified  a  few  persons  of  high  station ;  made  others 
more  obstinate  in  their  contempt  even  of  the  truths  uttered  by  a 
systematic  libeller.  That  they  produced  any  real  and  permanent 
benefit  to  the  country  can  scarcely  be  pretended,  even  by  those 
who  shut  their  eyes  to  the  monstrous  evil  of  that  system  of  per- 
sonality which  they  carried  to  its  utmost  limit — a  system  which 
was  the  disgrace  of  the  literature  of  that  period,  and  which  only 
died  out  when  anonymous  writers  accepted  their  position  of  secresy 
as  one  that  imposed  as  heavy,  perhaps  heavier,  responsibilities 
than  belonged  to  acknowledged  authorship.  Junius  waged  no  chiv- 
alric  war.  In  "  complete  steel  "  he  was  fighting  with  naked  men. 
Sir  Nathaniel  Wraxall,  amongst  his  gossiping  anecdotes,  says  that 
Mr.  Bradshaw,  the  Secretary  of  the  Treasury,  made  no  secret  "  of 
the  agony  into  which  the  duke  of  Grafton  was  thrown  by  these 
productions.  Such  was  their  effect  and  operation  on  his  mind,  as 
sometimes  utterly  to  incapacitate  him  during  whole  days  for  the 
ministerial  duties  of  his  office."  f  It  was  "the  venom  of  the  shaft 
rather  than  the  vigour  of  the  bow  "  J  which  made  the  prime  minis- 
ter sick,  "  as  a  sick  girl,"  under  these  skin-deep  wounds  from  a  foe 
in  ambush. 

The  first  especial  attack  of  Junius  on  the  duke  of  Grafton  was 
in  connection  with  an  event  which  was  associated  with  the  Wilk- 
ite  agitation.  Mr.  Cooke,  the  member  who  had  been  returned  for 
Middlesex  at  the  same  time  with  Wilkes,  having  died,  Serjeant 
Glynn  had  been  elected  in  December,  with  the  recommendation  to 
popular  favour  of  having  been  counsel  for  Wilkes.  The  court 
had  also  put  a  candidate  in  nomination.  The  "  roughs  "  at  this 
period  were  mostly  chairmen,  of  whom  the  greater  number  were 
Irish.  The  mob,  whether  hirelings  or  volunteers,  engaged  in  a 
fierce  battle,  which  ended  in  the  death  of  Mr.  Clarke,  one  of  the 
friends  of  the  popular  candidate.  Two  chairmen,  whose  names 
were  Macquirk  and  Balfe,  had  a  verdict  of  Wilful  Murder  returned 
against  them  on  a  coroner's  inquest ;  and  they  were  tried  at  the 
Old  Bailey,  and  found  guilty,  in  January.  The  feeling  of  the  pop- 
ulace was  manifested  by  the  shouts  and  clapping  of  hands  which 

*  "  Wii  iim  Burke,  the  Author  of  Junius,"  p.  6. 

*  "Historical  Memoirs,"  vol.  i.  p.  454.  t  Johnson — "  Falkland  Islands." 


JUNIUS'S   ATTACKS   ON   THE   DUKE   OF   GRAFTON.          113 

arose  in  the  gallery,  when  the  verdict  was  given.  They  were  left 
for  execution,  although  one  had  been  recommended  to  mercy  by 
the  jury,  and  there  were  circumstances  which  invalidated  the  proof 
that  these  men,  however  engaged  in  the  riot,  had  struck  the  de- 
ceased. Walpole  relates  that  two  members  of  the  House  of 
Commons,  who  saw  "  the  glaring  cruelty  of  putting  two  men  to 
death  who  had  neither  counselled  the  deed  nor  meditated  it,"  ex- 
pressed their  opinion  in  the  House  of  Commons ;  that  there  was 
not  a  dissenting  voice  on  the  recommendation  that  they  should  be 
pardoned ;  and  that  consequently  the  criminals  were  respited 
during  pleasure.  At  the  desire  of  the  Secretary  of  State,  the  Col- 
lege of  Surgeons  entered  upon  an  examination  of  witnesses,  and 
gave  as  their  unanimous  opinion  that  the  blow  which  was  described 
on  the  trial  was  not  the  cause  of  Clarke's  death.  The  men  accord- 
ingly received  the  King's  free  pardon.  Burke,  on  the  I5th  of 
April,  spoke  strongly  against  this  proceeding :  "  After  a  jury,  upon 
legal  evidence,  have  given  their  verdict — the  court  of  judicature 
has  determined,  the  judges  have  approved,  and  the  party  is  under 
sentenge, — the  mercy  of  the  Crown  interposes  :  '  No,  no,'  say  the 
government,  '  we  must  get  a  jury  of  surgeons  ;  of  that  kind  of  judi- 
cature we  must  avail  ourselves  ;  '  and  the  man  receives  the  royal 
pardon."  *  The  orater  complains  of  this  mode  of  setting  aside  a 
solemn  verdict  by  an  irregular  inquiry  ;  but  he  does  not  make  his 
complaint  the  vehicle  for  a  personal  attack  upon  the  prime  minis- 
ter or  any  member  of  the  government.  Junius,  on  the  contrary, 
writes  thus  to  the  duke  of  Grafton  :  "  When  the  laws  have  given 
you  the  means  of  making  an  example,  in  every  sense  unexception- 
able, and  by  far  the  most  likely  to  awe  the  multitude,  you  pardon 
the  offence,  and  are  not  ashamed  to  give  the  sanction  of  gov- 
ernment to  the  riots  you  complain  of,  and  even  to  future  mur- 
ders. You  are  partial,  perhaps,  to  the  military  mode  of  execution ; 
arid  had  rather  see  a  score  of  these  wretches  butchered  by  the 
guards,  than  one  of  them  suffer  death  by  regular  course  of  law." 
The  object  of  Burke  is  to  complain  of  an  irregular  ministerial  act : 
the  purpose  of  Junius  is  to  damage  an  individual. 

The  one  paramount  desire  of  Junius  was  to  destroy  the  ad-- 
ministration of  the  duke  of  Grafton.  He  had  no  large  conception 
of  a  general  policy  that  should  unite  a  great  party  in  the  conduct 
of  affairs  if  that  administration  were  destroyed.  The  two  ques- 
tions which  absorbed  the  thoughts,  and  divided  the  opinions,  of  all 
pubi\c  men,  were  the  contest  between  Parliamentary  Privilege  and 
Wilkes,  and  the  more  perplexing  quarrel  between  the  mother  coun 
*  "  Cavendish  Debates,"  vol.  i.  p.  382. 

VOL.  VI.— 8 


114  HISTORY   OF   ENGLAND. 

try  and  the  North  American  Colonies.  It  was  known  that  the 
king  held  the  most  decided  opinions  on  both  these  questions — that 
he  would  have  pursued  Wilkes  to  the  utmost  reach  of  power 
whatever  might  be  the  unpopularity ;  and  that  he  would  assert  the 
right  of  taxation  over  the  Colonies,  whatever  might  be  the  danger 
of  rebellion  and  war.  The  ministry  of  the  duke  of  Grafton  was 
committed,  in  a  great  degree,  to  an  agreement  with  the  will  of  the 
sovereign,  less  perhaps  from  conviction  than  from  an  imperfect 
view  of  the  consequences  of  persisting  in  a  doubtful  career.  At 
this  juncture  lord  Chatham,  having  ceased  to  be  at  the  head  of 
affairs,  was  free  to  pursue  his  own  declared  sentiments  on  the 
subject  of  American  taxation,  and  to  form  an  independent  judg- 
ment on  the  case  of  Wilkes.  He  had  become  reconciled  to  his 
brother-in-law,  lord  Temple,  and  was  looked  upon  as  having  joined 
the  Grenville  party.  But  though  he  agreed  with  George  Grenville 
on  the  unconstitutional  proceedings  of  the  House  of  Commons  in 
the  matter  of  the  Middlesex  election,  he  was  totally  opposed  to 
him  on  the  subject  of  America.  The  Rockingham  party,  of  whose 
policy  Burke  was  now  the  great  parliamentary  expositor,  held  fast 
to  the  popular  principles  in  the  dispute  with  the  freeholders  of 
Middlesex,  but  repudiated  any  such  assertion  of  authority  over  the 
Colonies  as  George  Grenville  had  maintained.  Junius  not  only 
supported  but  prompted  Wilkes  in  every  act  that  could  damage  the 
ministry.  But  he  also  spoke  in  the  most  contemptuous  terms  of 
any  individual  or  any  party  that  deemed  the  Colonists  anything 
but  rebels,  to  be  trodden  down  as  troublesome  vermin.  Ostensibly 
he  was  an  adherent  of  George  Grenville.  Had  he  any  real  prin- 
ciples ?  He  was  not  a  politician,  in  the  higher  sense  of  the  word. 
He  had  some  selfish  ambition  to  gratify ;  he  had  some  private 
grievances  to  revenge.  He  might  be  a  writing  puppet,  moved  by 
some  one  of  higher  mark — a  Francis,  or  a  I  yer,  prompted  by  a 
Temple.  He  might  be  a  man  of  noble  birth,  mining  like  a  mole  ; 
whose  vanity  was  gratified  by  the  notoriety  which  he  demanded, — 
pleased  with  acquiring  another  self-consciousness  than  that  which 
belonged  to  his  proper  person.  Whoever  he  was,  he  had  essen- 
tially a  paltry  mind.  He  had  not  the  mind  of  any  man  that  had 
won  or  was  winning  a  great  name — a  Chatham  or  a  Burke,  even  a 
Barre  or  a  Shelburne.  He  was  "  a  good  hater  ;  "  but  his  dislikes 
had  more  of  the  real  meanness  than  of  the  false  grandeur  of  hatred. 
His  true  nature  was  disclosed  in  his  private  letters  to  his  printer. 
Of  Mansfield,  the  lord  chief  justice,  he  says,  "  I  will  never  rest  till 
I  have  destroyed  or  expelled  that  wretch."  Mr.  Chamier,  a  mem- 
ber of  the  club  which  Johnson,  Reynolds,  Burke,  and  Goldsmith 


JUNIUS'S   ATTACK   ON   THE    DUKE   OF   GRAFTON.  115 

made  illustrious,  is  "to  be  run  down,"  to  annoy  lord  Barrington, 
the  secretary-at-war,  who  had  appointed  him  his  deputy.  With  the 
airs  of  an  aristocrat  he  writes  to  Garrick,  "  Mark  me,  vagabond. 
Keep  to  your  pantomimes,  or  be  assured  you  shall  hear  of  it."  With 
the  determination  of  an  assassin,  he  says  of  the  duke  of  Bedford, 
"  I  am  sure  I  can  threaten  him  privately  with  such  a  storm  as 
would  make  him  tremble  even  in  his  grave."  In  consonance  with 
his  whole  system,  he  recommends  Woodfall  to  deny  the  authenti- 
city of  one  of  his  letters  which  had  been  printed :  "  Suppose  you 
were  to  say — We  have  some  reason  to  suspect  that  the  last  letter 
signed  Junius  in  this  paper  was  not  written  by  the  real  Juniuc." 
To  show  how  the  coward  trembled  even  in  his  triple  armour  of 
concealment,  we  have  only  to  quote  from  one  letter  to  his  pub- 
lisher :  "  I  must  be  more  cautious  than  ever.  I  am  sure  I  should 
not  survive  a  discovery  three  days  ;  or,  if  I  did,  they  would  attaint 
me  by  bill.  I  am  persuaded  you  are  too  honest  a  man  to  contrib- 
ute in  any  way  to  my  destruction."  Attaint  him  by  bill !  as  if  he 
were  a  Bolingbroke  or  an  Ormonde.  He  was  a  man  of  rank,  and 
had  their  penalties  of  forfeiture  in  his  mind,  according  to  the  belief 
of  one  who  has  looked  carefully  into  the  subject.*  In  our  view, 
the  fear  of  attainder  was  only  one  of  the  many  pretences  by  which 
an  inordinately  vain  man  sought  to  raise  his  personal  importance 
in  the  eyes  of  the  humble  friend  to  whom  he  left  all  the  real  peril 
consequent  upon  his  own  audacity.  "  I  hope  these  papers  have 
reimbursed  you.  I  never  will  send  you  anything  that  /  think 
dangerous  ;  but  the  risque  is  yours,  and  you  must  determine  for 
yourself." 

The  duke  of  Grafton,  in  1769,  was  thirty-four  years  of  age.  He 
had  the  misfortune  to  be  divorced  from  his  wife  by  no  fault  of  his 
own ;  and  he  subsequently  made  no  secret  of  keeping  a  mistress — the 
great  of  that  day  not  having  been  shamed  into  decency  by  the 
decorum  of  the  Court.  These  circumstances  are  paraded  by  Junius 
without  reserve.  His  descent  from  Charles  II.  was  objected  to  him 
as  a  crime.  But  there  was  a  greater  sin  which  Grafton  had  just 
committed.  He  had  quitted  Nancy  Parsons,  and  married  a  niece 
of  the  duchess  of  Bedford.  The  family  union  was  the  symptom  of 
political  union  ;  and  the  hatred  of  Junius  to  the  two  ducal  houses 
strengthened  with  their  strength.  His  letter  to  the  duke  of  Bed- 
ford appeared  immediately  after  outrages  committed  upon  the  duke 
at  Exeter  and  at  Honiton.  Bull-dogs  were  set  upon  him,  as  he 
rode  through  the  latter  town,  and  he  was  pelted  with  stones  by  an 
outrageous  mob,  who  cried  "  Wilkes  and  Liberty," — "  the  Peace- 

*  "  Quarterly  Review,"  vol.  xc.  p.  101. 


Il6  HISTORY   OF   ENGLAND. 

maker."  *  Junius  took  up  the  hint.  The  duke  was  assaulted  on 
the  3Oth  of  July.  On  the  igth  of  September  appeared  a  letter  in 
which  "  the  Peacemaker,"  who  as  ambassador  to  France  negociated 
the  Peace  of  Paris,  was  accused  of  having  made  disadvantageous 
terms  for  his  country  upon  the  receipt  of  pecuniary  compensations. 
With  reference  to  the  Devonshire  outrages,  we  have  this  passage  : 
"  Your  friends  will  ask,  perhaps,  whither  shall  this  unhappy  old 
man  retire  ?  Can  he  remain  in  the  metropolis,  where  his  life  has 
been  often  threatened,  and  his  palace  so  often  attacked  ?  If  he 
returns  to  Woburn,  scorn  and  mockery  await  him.  He  must  create 
a  solitude  round  his  estate,  if  he  would  avoid  the  face  of  reproach 
and  derision.  At  Plymouth  his  destruction  would  be  more  than 
probable  ;  at  Exeter,  inevitable."  Lord  Brougham  has  devoted  a 
paper  to  the  vindication  of  the  character  of  John,  fourth  duke  of 
Bedford,— *"  to  rescue  the  memory  of  an  able,  an  amiable,  and  an 
honourable  man,  long  engaged  in  the  public  service,  both  as  a 
minister,  a  negociator,  and  a  viceroy — long  filling,  like  all  his  illus- 
trious house,  in  every  age  of  our  history,  an  exalted  place  among 
the  champions  of  our  free  constitution — from  the  obloquy  with 
which  a  licentious  press  loaded  him  when  living."  Lord  Brougham 
makes  the  complete  refutation  which  he  gives  to  the  falsehoods  of 
Junius,  a  test  of  "  the  claims  of  a  noted  slanderer  to  public  confi- 
dence." f 

The  celebrated  Address  of  Junius  to  the  king  may  properly 
close  our  notice  of  this  over-estimated  writer.  Of  that  depth  of 
political  information  which  it  has  been  the  fashion  to  attribute  to 
Junius,  this  address  exhibits  no  trace.  It  is  a  tedious  homily,  dis- 
playing no  accurate  perception  of  the  character  of  George  III.,  and 
touching  none  of  the  points  on  which  he  was  really  open  to  animad- 
version. He  is  blamed  for  his  encouragement  of  "  the  natives 
of  Scotland ;  "  for  removing  on  his  accession  the  ablest  servants  of 
the  crown  for  "a  little  personal  motive  of  pique  and  resentment " 
• — not  alluding  to  the  design  of  governing  by  "  the  king's  friends  ;  " 
of  hastily  concluding  a  peace  with  "  the  natural  enemies  of  thte 
country."  The  contest  with  Wilkes  is  gone  over,  without  any 
stronger  argument  than  very  dull  sarcasm  upon  the  king's  minis- 
ters. Allusion  is  made  to  Charles  I.,  but  only  to  point  to  the  treach- 
ery of  his  Scotch  subjects.  The  peroration  is  like  the  bounce  at 
the  end  of  a  squib :  "  The  name  of  Stuart,  of  itself,  is  only  con- 
temptible ;  armed  with  the  sovereign  authority,  their  principles  are 
formidable.  The  prince  who  imitates  their  conduct  should  be 

*  Journal  of  the  Duke — in  "  Cavendish  Debates,"  p.  620. 

t  "  Sketches  of  Statesmen  who  flourished  in  the  time  of  George  III." 


ADDRESS   OF   JUNIUS  TO   THE    KING.'  117 

warned  by  examples  ;  and,  while  he  plumes  himself  upon  the  secu- 
rity of  his  title  to  the  crown,  should  remember  that,  as  it  was 
acquired  by  one  revolution,  it  may  be  lost  by  another."  Mr.  Wood- 
fall  was  prosecuted  for  this  Address  ;  and  was  tried  before  lord 
Mansfield,  in  June  1770.  The  jury  had  been  charged  to  consider 
first,  the  printing  and  publishing  the  paper ;  secondly,  the  sense 
and  meaning  of  it.  But  the  Chief-justice  told  them  that  as  to  the 
charge  of  its  being  malicious,  seditious,  &c.,  these  were  inferences 
in  law  about  which  no  evidence  need  be  given.  The  jury  returned 
a  verdict  of  "  Guilty  of  printing  and  publishing  only."  The  Court 
of  King's  Bench  decided  that  a  new  trial  should  be  granted,  but 
the  original  newspaper  not  being  produced,  the  proceedings  fell  to 
the  ground.  Out  of  this  trial  grew  a  material  alleviation  of  the 
Libel  Law. 

On  the  Qth  of  May,  the  Parliament  was  prorogued.  It  was  the 
day  after  the  final  decision  on  the  Middlesex  election.  In  the 
speech  from  the  throne  the  members  were  exhorted,  "  with  more 
than  ordinary  earnestness,"  to  exert  their  utmost  efforts  for  the 
maintenance  of  the  public  peace.  The  excitement  throughout  the 
country  was  considerable,  but  it  rarely  took  the  form  of  tumult.  It 
was  manifest,  however,  that  the  supposed  victory  of  the  government 
would  not  give  the  nation  that  quiet  which  sanguine  courtiers 
anticipated.  Lord  Chatham  came  forth  from  his  long  retirement, 
and  attended  the  king's  levee  on  the  7th  of  July — "  he  himself,  in 
proprid,  persona,  and  not  in  a  strait  waistcoat,"  as  Walpole  writes. 
From  the  MS.  Memoirs  of  the  duke  of  Grafton  we  find  that 
Chatham,  when  called  by  the  king  into  his  closet,  objected  to  the 
course  which  had  been  pursued  in  the  case  of  Wilkes,  and  stated 
"  that  he  doubted  whether  his  health  would  ever  again  allow  him  to 
attend  Parliament,  but  if  it  did,  and  if  he  should  give  his  dissent 
to  any  measure,  that  his  majesty  would  be  indulgent  enough  to 
believe  that  it  would  not  arise  from  any  personal  consideration." 

On  the  gth  of  January,  1770,  the  Parliament  was  opened  by  the 
king.  With  a  singular  want  of  perception  of  the  ridiculous,  the 
first  words  of  the  royal  speech  were  these  :  "My  Lords  and  Gen- 
tlemen,— It  is  with  much  concern  that  I  find  myself  obliged  to  open 
the  Session  of  Parliament  with  acquainting  you,  that  the  distemper 
among  the  horned  cattle  has  lately  broke  out  in  this  kingdom." 
The  petitions  which  had  been  presented  from  corporations  and 
counties  received  no  notice  in  this  speech.  Junius,  with  some 
justice,  said  to  the  duke  of  Grafton,  "While  the  whole  kingdom 
was  agitated  with  anxious  expectation  upon  one  great  point,  you 
meanly  evaded  the  question  ;  and  instead  of  the  firmness  and  de« 


Il8  HISTORY   OF  "ENGLAND. 

cision  of  a  king,  gave  us  nothing  but  the  misery  of  a  ruined  gra- 
zier." But  a  voice  more  terrible  than  that  of  Junius  was  to  rouse 
the  government  from  its  seeming  unconcern.  In  the  House  of 
Lords,  Chatham  moved  an  amendment  to  the  Address,  pledging  the 
peers  that  they  would  take  into  their  most  serious  consideration  the 
causes  of  the  discontents  which  so  generally  prevailed,  and  particu- 
larly the  late  proceedings  in  the  House  of  Commons  touching  the 
incapacity  of  John  Wilkes,  Esq.,  to  be  elected  a  member  of  the 
present  Parliament.  The  scene  in  the  Upper  House  on  this  occa- 
sion must  have  been  as  exciting  as  any  in  the  history  of  our  coun- 
try. The  speech  by  which  Chatham  introduced  the  amendment,  as 
well  as  the  speech  of  lord  Mansfield,  and  lord  Chatham's  reply, 
were  first  published  in  1792,  from  a  report  of  Mr.  Francis,  after- 
wards sir  Philip  Francis,  upon  whom  rests  the  prevailing  opinion 
that  he  was  Junius.  We  may  judge  by  the  following  passage  of 
the  tendency  of  Chatham's  speech  :  "  The  liberty  of  the  subject 
is  invaded,  not  only  in  the  provinces,  but  here  at  home  !  The  En- 
glish people  are  loud  in  their  complaints;  they  demand  redress  ; 
and,  depend  upon  it,  my  lords,  that,  one  way  or  another,  they  will 
have  redress.  They  will  never  return  to  a  state  of  tranquillity  till 
they  are  redressed.  Nor  ought  they.  For  in  my  judgment,  my 
lords,  and  I  speak  it  boldly,  it  were  better  for  them  to  perish  in  a 
glorious  contention  for  their  rights,  than  to  purchase  a  slavish 
tranquillity  at  the  expense  of  a  single  iota  of  the  Constitution." 
Lord  Mansfield  spoke,  contending  that  the  proposed  amendment 
was  an  attack  upon  the  privileges  of  the  other  House  of  Parlia- 
ment. This  produced  a  reply  from  lord  Chatham.  When  men 
speak  of  the  eloquence  of  this  wondrous  orator,  they  quote  such 
passages  of  this  speech  as  the  following. 

On  the  usurpation  of  power  by  the  House  of  Commons  :— 
"The  Constitution  of  this  country  has  been  openly  invaded  in 
fact ;  and  I  have  heard,  with  horror  and  astonishment,  that  very 
invasion  defended  upon  principle.  What  is  this  mysterious  power, 
undefined  by  law,  unknown  to  the  subject,  which  we  must  not  ap- 
proach without  awe,  nor  speak  of  without  reverence, — which  no 
man  may  question,  and  to  which  all  men  must  submit  ?  My  lords, 
I  thought  the  slavish  doctrine  of  passive  obedience  had  long  since 
been  exploded  ;  and,  when  our  kings  were  obliged  to  confess  that 
their  title  to  the  Crown,  and  the  rule  of  their  government,  had  no 
other  foundation  than  the  known  laws  of  the  land,  I  never  ex- 
pected to  hear  a  divine  right,  or  a  divine  infallibility,  attributed  to 
any  other  branch  of  the  Legislature.  My  lords,  I  beg  to  be  under- 
stood. No  man  respect*  the  House  of  Commons  more  than  I  do, 


.CHATHAM'S  SPEECH  ON  THE  ADDRESS.  119 

or  would  contend  more  strenuously  than  I  would,  to  preserve  to 
them  their  just  and  legal  authority.  Within  the  bounds  prescribed 
by  the  Constitution,  that  authority  is  necessary  for  the  well-being 
of  the  people.  Beyond  that  line  every  exertion  of  power  is  arbi- 
trary, is  illegal ;  it  threatens  tyranny  to  the  people,  and  destruction 
to  the  state.  Power  without  right  is  the  most  odious  and  detesta- 
ble object  that  can  be  offered  to  the  human  imagination.  It  is  not 
only  pernicious  to  those  who  are  subject  to  it,  but  tends  to  its  own 

destruction The  House  of  Commons,  we  are  told,  have  a 

supreme  jurisdiction,  and  there  is  no  appeal  from  their  sentence ; 
and  that  wherever  they  are  competent  judges,  their  decision  must 
be  received  and  submitted  to,  as,  ipso  facto,  the  law  of  the  land. 
My  lords,  I  am  a  plain  man,  and  have  been  brought  up  in  a  re- 
ligious reverence  for  the  original  simplicity  of  the  laws  of  Eng- 
land. By  what  sophistry  they  have  been  perverted,  by  what  arti- 
fices they  have  been  involved  in  obscurity,  is  not  for  me  to  ex- 
plain. The  principles,  however,  of  the  English  laws  are  still  suf- 
ficiently clear ;  they  are  founded  in  reason,  and  are  the  master- 
piece of  the  human  understanding;  but  it  is  in  the  text  that  I 
would  look  for  a  direction  to  my  judgment,  not  in  the  comment- 
aries of  modern  professors.  The  noble  lord  assures  us  that  he 
knows  not  in  what  code  the  law  of  Parliament  is  to  be  found  ; 
that  the  House  of  Commons,  when  they  act  as  judges,  have  no 
law  to  direct  them  but  their  own  wisdom  ;  that  their  decision  is 
law ;  and  if  they  determine  wrong,  the  subject  has  no  appeal  but 
to  Heaven.  What  then,  my  lords  ?  Are  all  the  generous  efforts 
of  our  ancestors,  are  all  those  glorious  contentions,  by  which  they 
meant  to  secure  to  themselves,  and  to  transmit  to  their  posterity, 
a  known  law,  a  certain  rule  of  living,  reduced  to  this  conclusion, 
that  instead  of  the  arbitrary  power  of  a  King,  we  must  submit  to 
the  arbitrary  power  of  the  House  of  Commons  ?  If  this  be  true, 
what  benefit  do  we  derive  from  the  exchange  ?  Tyranny,  my  lords, 
is  detestable  in  every  shape,  but  in  none  so  formidable  as  when  it 
is  assumed  and  exercised  by  a  number  of  tyrants.  But,  my  lords, 
this  is  not  the  fact ;  this  is  not  the  Constitution.  We  have  a  law 
of  Parliament.  We  have  a  code  in  which  every  honest  man  may 
find  it.  We  have  Magna  Charta.  We  have  the  Statute  Book, 

and  the  Bill  of  Rights." 

Could  the  mischief  of  the  decision  of  the  House  of  Commons 
not  be  redressed  : — "  If  we  are  to  believe  the  noble  lord,  this 
great  grievance,  this  manifest  violation  of  the  first  principles  of  the 
Constitution,  will  not  admit  of  a  remedy.  It  is  not  even  capable  of 
redress,  unless  we  appeal  at  once  to  Heaven !  My  lords,  I  have 
better  hopes  of  the  Constitution,  and  a  firmer  confidence  in  the 


120  HISTORY   OF   ENGLAND. 

wisdom  and  constitutional  authority  of  this  House.  It  is  to  your 
ancestors,  my  lords,  it  is  to  the  English  barons,  that  we  are  in- 
debted for  the  laws  and  Constitution  we  possess.  Their  virtues 
were  rude  and  uncultivated,  but  they  were  great  and  sincere. 
Their  understandings  were  as  little  polished  as  their  manners,  but 
they  had  hearts  to  distinguish  right  from  wrong ;  they  had  heads 
to  distinguish  truth  from  falsehood ;  they  understood  the  rights  of 
humanity,  and  they  had  spirit  to  maintain  them.  My  lords,  I 
think  that  history  has  not  done  justice  to  their  conduct,  when  they 
obtained  from  their  sovereign  that  great  acknowledgment  of  na- 
tional rights  contained  in  Magna  Charta  :  they  did  not  confine  it 
to  themselves  alone,  but  delivered  it  as  a  common  blessing  to  the 
whole  people.  They  did  not  say,  these  are  the  rights  of  the  great 
barons,  or  these  are  the  rights  of  the  great  prelates.  No,  my 
lords,  they  said,  in  the  simple  Latin  of  the  times,  '  nullus  liber 
homo  '  [no  free  man],  and  provided  as  carefully  for  the  meanest 
subject  as  for  the  greatest.  These  are  uncouth  words,  and  sound 
but  poorly  in  the  ears  of  scholars,  neither  are  they  addressed  to 
the  criticism  of  scholars,  but  to  the  hearts  of  free  men.  These 
three  words,  '  nullus  liber  homo,'  have  a  meaning  which  interests 
us  all.  They  deserve  to  be  remembered, — they  deserve  to  be  in- 
culcated in  our  minds, — they  are  worth  all  the  classics.  Let  us 
not,  then,  degenerate  from  the  glorious  example  of  our  ancestors. 
Those  iron  barons  (for  so  I  may  call  them  when  compared  with 
silken  barons  of  modern  days)  were  the  guardians  of  the  people  ; 
yet  their  virtues,  my  lords,  were  never  engaged  in  a  question  of 
such  importance  as  the  present.  A  breach  has  been  made  in  the 
Constitution, — the  battlements  are  dismantled, — the  citadel  is  open 
to  the  first  invader, — the  walls  totter, — the  Constitution  is  not  ten- 
able. What  remains,  then,  but  for  us  to  stand  forward  in  the 
breach,  and  repair  it,  or  perish  in  it  ?  " 

That  memorable  debate  of  the  Peers  on  the  Qth  of  January 
was  closed  by  an  event  which  was  not  unexpected,  but  which  form- 
ed a  striking  exception  to  the  ordinary  course  of  the  actions  of 
great  statesmen.  It  is  clear  from  the  Chatham  Correspondence 
that  the  Lord  Chancellor  Camden,  and  the  marquis  of  Granby, 
were  to  a  certain  extent  under  the  influence  of  Chatham.  His  con- 
fidential correspondent,  Mr.  John  Calcraft,  writes  to  him  on  the 
28th  of  November,  to  beg  "  that  they  may  be  put  on  their  guard  '' 
not  to  attend  a  particular  council.  "  Fearing  neither  of  our  friends 
are  the  best  politicians,  I  cannot  help  harbouring  doubts  but  they 
may  get  entangled  at  this  council,  for  no  pains  will  be  spared." 
Camden,  Granby,  and  Conway,  as  well  as  Graf  ton,  in  the  spring  of 
1769,  held  to  the  necessity  of  not  attempting  any  taxation  of 


LORD   CAMDEN   DISCLAIMS   THEIR    MEASURES.  121 

America,  by  import  duties.  They  were  overruled.  Grafton  re- 
mained in  power,  and  Camden  and  Granby  did  not  quit  their  em- 
ployments. The  schism  in  the  cabinet  was  made  more  serious  by 
the  question  of  Wilkes.  After  Chatham's  speech  on  the  pth  of 
January,  Camden  rose  from  the  woolsack,  and  thus  threw  off  all 
restraint  : — "  I  accepted  the  great  seal  without  conditions  ;  I  meant 
not,  therefore,  to  be  trammelled  by  his  majesty — I  beg  pardon,  by 
his  ministers — but  I  have  suffered  myself  to  be  so  too  long.  For 
some  time  I  have  beheld  with  silent  indignation  the  arbitrary 
measures  of  the  minister.  I  have  often  drooped  and  hung  down 
my  head  in  council,  and  disapproved  by  my  looks  those  steps  which 
I  knew  my  avowed  opposition  could  not  prevent.  I  will  do  so  no 
longer,  but  openly  and  boldly  speak  my  sentiments.  I  now  pro- 
claim to  the  world  that  I  entirely  coincide  in  the  opinion  expressed 
by  my  noble  friend — whose  presence  again  reanimates  us — respect- 
ing this  unconstitutional  vote  of  the  House  of  Commons.  If,  in 
giving  my  opinion  as  a  judge,  I  were  to  pay  any  respect  to  that 
vote,  I  should  look  upon  myself  as  a  traitor  to  my  trust,  and  an 
enemy  to  my  country.  By  their  violent  and  tyrannical  conduct, 
ministers  have  alienated  the  minds  of  the  people  from  his  majesty's 
government — I  have  almost  said  from  his  majesty's  person — inso- 
much, that  if  some  measures  are  not  devised  to  appease  the  clam- 
ours so  universally  prevalent,  I  know  not,  my  lords,  whether  the 
people,  in  despair,  may  not  become  their  own  avengers,  and  take 
the  redress  of  grievances  into  their  own  hands." 

In  the  House  of  Commons,  the  marquis  of  Granby  voted  for 
the  amendment  which  had  been  proposed  in  opposition  to  the 
government.  The  Lord  Chancellor,  and  the  Commander-in-Chief, 
were  thus  in  open  hostility  with  the  other  members  of  the  Cabinet. 
Such  an  anomalous  state  could  not  long  endure.  Chatham,  Tem- 
ple, and  their  friends,  were  waiting  the  issue  with  extreme  solici- 
tude. Granby  had  been  earnestly  entreated  to  retain  his  command 
of  the  army  in  spite  of  his  vote.  "  The  king,  it  seems,  and  the 
duke  of  Grafton  are  upon  their  knees  to  lord  Granby  not  to  resign," 
writes  Temple  to  Chatham.  *  Chatham  grieves  that  twenty-four 
hours'  respite  has  been  granted  to  a  minister's  entreaties,  f  He 
was  at  last  set  at  rest  by  Granby's  resignation.  But  he  regrets 
that  the  Chancellor  had  dragged  the  great  seal  for  an  hour  at  the 
heels  of  a  desperate  minister.  $  His  high  office  had  been  offered 
to  Mr.  Charles  Yorke,  the  son  of  the  lord  chancellor  Hardwicke. 
It  was  a  prize  he  had  long  coveted  ;  but  to  accept  it  would  be  to 
desert  his  party.  He  declined.  Three  days  after  he  went  to  the 
leve'e  at  St.  James's  ;  and,  at  the  earnest  entreaties  of  the  king,  he 

""Chatham  Cor.-espondence,"  vol.  iii.  p.  391.        t  Ibid.,  p.  392.        t  Ibid.,  p.  398. 


122  HISTORY   OF    ENGLAND. 

kissed  the  royal  hand  as  Chancellor.  Camden  was  dismissed. 
Yorke,  borne  down  by  agitation  of  mind,  died,  as  was  supposed  by 
his  own  hand,  on  the  2oth  of  January.  On  the  22nd  there  came 
on  another  great  debate  in  the  House  of  Lords  on  the  State  of  the 
Nation,  in  which  Chatham  announced  his  cordial  union  with  the 
party  of  Rockingham.  It  was  on  this  occasion  that  Chatham 
recommended  a  specific  plan  of  Parliamentary  Reform.  "  The 
boroughs  of  this  country  have  properly  enough  been  called  '  the 
rotten  parts  '  of  the  Constitution.  But  in  my  judgment,  my  lords, 
these  boroughs,  corrupt  as  they  are,  must  be  considered  as  the 
natural  infirmity  of  the  Constitution.  Like  the  infirmities  of  the 
body,  we  must  bear  them  with  patience,  and  submit  to  carry  them 
about  with  us.  The  limb  is  mortified,  but  the  amputation  might 
be  death.  Let  us  try,  my  lords,  whether  some  gentler  remedies 
may  not  be  discovered.  Since  we  cannot  cure  the  disorder,  let  us 
endeavour  to  infuse  such  a  portion  of  new  health  into  the  Con- 
stitution as  may  enable  it  to  support  its  most  inveterate  diseases. 
The  representation  of  the  counties  is,  I  think,  still  preserved  pure 
and  uncorrupted.  That  of  the  greatest  cities  is  upon  a  footing 
equally  respectable  ;  and  there  are  many  of  the  larger  trading 
towns  which  still  preserve  their  independence.  The  infusion  of 
health  which  I  now  allude  to  would  be  to  permit  every  county  to 
elect  one  member  more,  in  addition  to  their  present  representation. 
The  knights  of  the  shires  approach  nearest  to  the  constitutional 
representation  of  the  country,  because  they  represent  the  soil.  It 
is  not  in  the  little  dependent  boroughs,  it  is  in  the  great  cities  and 
counties,  that  the  strength  and  vigour  of  the  Constitution  resides  ; 
and  by  them  alone,  if  an  unhappy  question  should  ever  arise,  will 
the  Constitution  be  honestly  and  firmly  defended.  It  would  in- 
crease that  strength,  because  I  think  it  is  the  only  security  we 
have  against  the  profligacy  of  the  times,  the  corruption  of  the  peo- 
ple, and  the  ambition  of  the  crown." 

The  continued  debate  on  the  State  of  the  Nation  was  deferred 
till  the  2nd  of  February.  On  the  28th  of  January,  the  duke  of 
Graf  ton  resigned.  The  king  was  not  unprepared  for  this  event. 
On  the  23rd  of  January  he  thus  wrote  to  lord  North  :  "  Lord  Wey- 
mouth  and  lord  Gower  will  wait  upon  you  this  morning  to  press 
you  in  the  strongest  manner  to  accept  the  office  of  First  Lord 
Commissioner  of  the  Treasury.  My  mind  is  more  and  more 
strengthened  in  the  Tightness  of  the  measure,  which  would  prevent 
every  other  desertion.  You  must  easily  see  that  if  you  do  not 
accept,  I  have  no  peer  at  present  that  I  would  consent  to  place  in 
the  duke  of  Grafton's  employment."  "  The  Tightness  of  the  meas- 
ure "  was  .to  be  tested  by  twelve  years  of  national  calamity. 


LORD   NORTH  S   ADMINISTRATION.  123 


CHAPTER  VII. 

i 

Lord  North's  Administration. — Retrospect  of  Colonial  affairs.— Opposition  to  the  Reve-  ' 
nue  Act. — Debates  in  Parliament  on  American  proceedings. — Measures  of  coercion 
proposed. — Lord  Hillsborough. — Virginia. — Outrages  in  Boston. — Repeal  of  duties, 
except  that  on  teas. — Encounter  with  the  military  at  Boston. — Renewal  of  the  con- 
flict regarding  Wilkes. — Remonstrance  of  the  City  of  London. — Beckford's  Address 
to  the  King.— Printers  arrested  for  publishing  Debates. — Released  by  the  City 
authorities. — Riots. — The  Lord  Mayor  and  an  Alderman  committed. — Officers  of 
State. 

THE  domestic  agitations  during  the  period  of  the  duke  of  Graf- 
ton's  ministry  required  to  be  given  in  an  unbroken  narrative.  We 
now  take  up  the  more  truly  important  relation  of  those  events  in 
the  North  American  Colonies,  and  of  the  mode  in  which  they  were 
dealt  with  by  the  imperial  government  These  facts  form  the 
prologue  to  the  tragedy  of  the  American  Revolution. 

In  1768  a  third  Secretary  of  State  was  appointed.  The  office 
of  Secretary  of  State  for  Scotland  had  been  abolished  ;  but  now  a 
new  place  was  created  for  the  earl  of  Hillsborough — the  Secretary- 
ship of  the  Colonies.  It  was  a  position  of  authority  which  demand- 
ed a  rare  union  of  firmness  and  moderation.  But  the  Secretary 
was  a  member  of  a  cabinet  divided  in  judgment  on  the  great 
question  of  American  taxation ;  and  lord  Hillsborough  was  of  the 
party  of  the  duke  of  Bedford,  who  held  opinions  on  that  subject, 
not  exactly  in  consonance  with  that  championship  of  our  free  con- 
stitution which  has  been  claimed  for  him.*  Hillsborough  had  to 
deal  with  colonial  subjects  of  the  British  Crown,  whose  indignation 
at  the  Stamp  Act  had  been  revived  by  Charles  Townshend's  fatal 
measure  for  granting  duties  in  America  on  glass,  red  and  white 
lead,  painter's  colours,  paper,  and  tea.  These  duties  were  not  ,to 
be  collected  until  the  2oth  of  November,  1767.  That  day  passed 
over  in  quiet  in  Boston ;  but  the  inhabitants  had  previously  assem- 
bled, and  had  entered  into  resolutions  to  forbear  the  use  of  many 
articles  of  British  produce  or  manufacture.  The  principle  of 
resistance  to  the  Revenue  Act  of  1767  was  declared  in  a  work 
largely  circulated,  entitled  "  Letters  from  a  Farmer  in  Pennsylva- 
nia." The  author  was  John  Dickinson.  Franklin  republished 
these  letters  in  London,  although  they  were  opposed  to  his  earlier 

*  See  ante. 


124  HISTORY   OF    ENGEAND. 

opinion  that  external  taxation, — import  duties — were    essentially 
less  obnoxious  than  internal  taxation — a  Stamp  Act.     In  February, 
1768,  the  Assembly  of  Massachusetts,  between  which  body  and  the 
governor,  Francis   Bernard,  there  had  been  serious  disputes,  ad- 
dressed a  circular  letter  to  the  other  provinces,  inviting  them  to 
unite  in  opposing  the  act  for  raising  a  revenue  in  the  colonies. 
When  the  intelligence   of  this  circular  reached  London,  Hillsbor- 
ough  wrote  to  Bernard  directing  him  to  require,  in  the  king's  name, 
the  House  of  Representatives  in  Massachusetts  to  rescind  the 
resolution  which  produced  the  circular  letter  from  their  Speaker ; 
and  if  they  refused,  immediately  to  dissolve  them.     The  governors 
of  the  other  colonies  were  ordered  to  pursue  a  similar  course,  if 
the  assemblies  gave  any  countenance  to  the  "  seditious  paper,"  of 
Massachusetts.     The   dissolution  of  the  Assembly  of   that  state 
took  place  on  the  ist  of  July,  1768,  on  its  refusal,  by  a  very  large 
majority,  to  rescind  the  resolution.     At  that  time  there  was  a  great 
ferment  in  Boston,  occasioned  by  the  seizure  of  a  sloop  laden  with 
wine  from  Madeira,  which  had  been  attempted  to  be  landed  without 
paying  duty.     The  new  Commissioners  of  Customs  directed  the 
seizure;  but  a  riot  ensuing,  they  fled  in  terror  to  a  fortress  at  the 
mouth   of  the   harbour.     It  was  now  ascertained,  from   a  letter 
written  by  Hillsborough  to  Bernard  at  the  very  time  that  this  riot 
was  taking  place,  that  troops  were  ordered  to  be  sent  from  Halifax 
to  Boston.     Some  of  the  more  violent  inhabitants  proposed  to  arm ; 
others  requested  the  governor  to  call  together  another  Assembly. 
He  refused  to  do  so.     The  bold  step  was  then  taken  by  the  popular 
leaders  of  summoning  a  Convention  to  meet  at  Boston.     Elections 
took  place  ;  and  committee  men,  as  they  were  termed,  from  ninety- 
five  towns  or  districts  held  sittings  in  a  building  belonging  to  the 
people  of  Boston,  known  as  Faneuil  Hall.     The   Convention  sat 
only  six  days.     The  governor  had  remonstrated  against  this  body 
of  delegates  attempting  to  transact  the  public  business,  and  warned 
them  of  the  penal  consequences  which  they  might  incur  if  they  did 
not  separate.     They  protested,  however,  against  taxation  of  the 
Colonies  by  the  British  Parliament,  and  against  a  standing  army. 
They  addressed  a  petition  to  the  king.     They  recommended  to  all 
the  preservation   of  good  order.     On  the   28th  of  September,  a 
squadron  arrived  from  Halifax ;  conveying  a  large  body  of  troops 
with  artillery.     Other  troops  continued  to  arrive ;  and  four  regi- 
ments were  encamped  near  the  city,  or  found  their  lodging  in  any 
public  building.     It  was  illegal  to  quarter  them  on  the  inhabitants. 
There  was  quiet ;  but  the  spirit  of  resistance  was  not  thus  to  be 
extinguished.      That  spirit  was  not  confined  to  Massachusetts ; 


DEBATES    ON   AMERICAN    PROCEEDINGS,  125 

although  the  determination  to  counteract  the  operation  of  the 
Revenue  Act  took  only  the  form  of  associations  who  agreed  not  to 
consume  the  produce  or  manufactures  of  the  mother-country.  The 
"  sons  of  liberty,"  as  they  were  called,  would  wear  no  English 
broadcloth  ;  and  the  "  daughters  of  liberty  "  would  drink  no  tea,  if 
a  duty  were  to  be  paid  of  threepence  a-pound.  The  consumers  of 
tea  in  England  paid  four  times  as  much  duty ;  but  the  Colonists 
denied  the  right  of  the  imperial  Parliament  to  levy  any  duty  at  all 
upon  those  who  were  unrepresented. 

The  king,  on  opening  the  Parliament  on  the  8th  of  November, 
1768,  spoke  in  severe  terms  of  the  proceedings  in  North  America. 
The  spirit  of  faction  had  broken  out  afresh ;  one  of  the  colonies 
had  proceeded  to  acts  of  violence  and  of  resistance  to  the  execu- 
tion of  the  law ;  the  capital  town  of  that  colony  was  in  a  state  of 
disobedience  to  all  law  and  government, — had  adopted  measures 
subversive  of  the  constitution,  and  attended  with  circumstances 
that  might  manifest  a  disposition  to  throw  off  their  dependence  on 
Great  Britain.  Not  a  word  was  uttered  of  the  cause  of  this  dis- 
obedience. Turbulent  and  seditious  persons  were  to  be  defeated. 
On  the  1 5th  of  December,  in  the  House  of  Lords,  the  duke  of  Bed- 
ford moved  an  Address  to  the  king,  recommending  that  the  chief 
authors  and  instigators  of  the  late  disorders  in  Massachusetts 
should  be  brought  to  condign  punishment ;  and  beseeching  his 
majesty  that  he  would  direct  the  governor  of  that  colony  "  to  take  the 
most  effectual  methods  for  procuring  the  fullest  information  that 
can  be  obtained  touching  all  treasons  or  misprision  of  treason,  com- 
•.mitted  within  this  government  since  the  3oth  day  of  December  last, 
and  to  transmit  the  same,  together  with  the  names  of  the  persons 
who  were  most  active  in  the  commission  of  such  offences,  to  one 
of  your  majesty's  principal  Secretaries  of  State,  in  order  that  your 
majesty  may  issue  a  special  commission  for  inquiring  of,  hearing 
and  determining,  the  said  offences  within  this  realm,  pursuant  to 
the  provisions  of  the  statute  of  the  35th  year  of  the  reign  of  king 
Henry  VIII.,  in  case  your  majesty  shall  upon  receiving  the  said 
information,  see  sufficient  ground  for  such  a  proceeding."  This 
most  arbitrary  proposal  was  carried  without  a  division.  In  the 
House  of  Commons,  at  the  opening  of  the  Session,  Mr.  Stanley, 
the  seconder  of  the  Address,  said  that  the  people  of  the  insolent 
town  of  Boston  "must  be  treated  as  aliens."  "  It  is  not  arms  that 
govern  a  people,"  exclaimed  Burke.  Beckford  spoke  with  plain 
English  honesty  :  "  At  the  time  of  passing  the  American  Stamp 
Act,  I  openly  declared  it  to  be  my  opinion  that  taxing  America  for 
the  sake  of  raising  a  revenue  would  never  do.  Why  would  you 


126  HISTORY   OF   ENGLAND. 

stir  these  waters  ?  Let  the  nation  return  to  its  old  good-nature,  and 
its  old  good-humour."  The  Resolutions  and  Address  of  the  Lords 
had  been  sent  down  to  the  Commons.  On  the  26th  of  January, 
1769,  the  proposal  of  the  duke  of  Bedford  was  strenuously  resisted, 
and  feebly  defended.  Burke  said,  with  regard  to  this  dangerous 
remedy  for  disaffection,  "you  fire  a  cannon  upon  your  enemy  which 
will  re-act  upon  yourselves."  Why,  he  said,  do  you  call  for  this  Act 
of  Henry  VIII.  to  be  put  in  force  ?  "  Because  you  cannot  trust  a 
jury  of  that  country.  If  you  have  not  a  party  among  two  millions 
of  people,  you  must  either  change  your  plan  of  government,  or  re- 
nounce the  colonies  for  ever."  George  Grenville  said  the  Resolu- 
tion was  "  so  much  waste  paper  ....  Your  Conduct  reminds  me 
of  the  story  of  the  sailor  who  climbed  up  to  the  top  of  the  main- 
mast :  on  being  asked  what  he  was  doing,  he  said  he  was  doing 
nothing,  and  that  the  lad  was  helping  him."  *  The  most  practical 
advice  was  offered  to  the  House  by  Mr.  Pownall,  who  had  been 
governor  of  Massachusetts  : — "  Let  the  matter  of  right  rest  upon 
the  declaratory  law,  and  say  no  more  about  it."  f  . 

The  minority,  whether  in  Parliament  or  amongst  the  nation 
generally,  who  opposed  the  principle  of  American  taxation,  little 
knew  in  the  spring  of  1769  how  near  they  were  to  a  triumph.  On 
the  igth  of  April,  governor  Pownall  moved  that  the  House  should 
go  into  Committee  to  consider  the  Act  passed  for  granting  certain 
duties  on  the  American  colonies.  There  was  a  short  debate,  but 
the  motion  was  rejected,  by  what  lord  North  called  "a  mannerly 
way  of  putting  aside  the  present  question  " — namely,  by  moving 
the  orders  of  the  day,  On  the  9th  of  May  the  Parliament  was  pro- 
rogued. But  on  the  1st  of  May  a  Cabinet  Council  was  held,  in 
which  the  result  of  a  deliberation  on  the  question  of  America  is 
thus  described  by  the  duke  of  Grafton  in  his  MS.  Memoirs  :  "The 
internal  state  of  the  country  was  really  alarming ;  and  from  my 
situation  I  had  more  cause  to  feel  it  than  any  other  man.  But  a 
measure  at  this  time  adopted  by  a  majority  of  the  king's  servants 
gave  me  still  more  apprehension,  considering  it  to  be  big  with  more 
mischief ;  for  contrary  to  my  proposal  of  including  the  article  of 
teas,  together  with  all  the  other  trifling  objects  of  taxation,  to  be 
repealed  on  the  opening  of  the  next  Session,  it  was  decided  that 
the  teas  were  still  to  remain  taxed  as  before,  though  contrary  to  the 
declared  opinions  of  lord  Camden,  lord  Granby,  general  Conway, 
and  myself.  Sir  Edward  Hawke  was  absent  through  illness: 
otherwise  I  think  he  would  have  agreed  with  those  who  voted  for 
including  the  teas  in  the  repeal."  The  duke  of  Grafton  then  pro- 
*  "Cavendish  Debates,"  vol.  i.  p.  103.  t  I6id.,  p.  225. 


VIRGINIA.  127 

ceeds  distinctly  to  accuse  lord  Hillsborough  of  having  suppressed 
in  the  minute  of  the  Council,  which  was  to  be  communicated  to  the 
colonial  governors,  "  words  as  kind  and  lenient  as  could  be  pro- 
posed by  some  of  us,  and  not  without  encouraging  expressions 
which  were  too  evidently  displeasing  to  his  lordship."  Camden 
charged  Hillsborough  with  this  suppression  ;  which  he  denied. 
The  presumptuous  Secretary,  who  evidently  acted  with  some  au- 
thority from  a  higher  quarter,  not  only  garbled  the  minute,  but  ac- 
companied it  with  a  circular  letter,  which  Graf  ton  terms  "  unfortunate 
and  unwarrantable — calculated  to  do  all  mischief,  when  our  real 
minute  might  have  paved  the  way  to  some  good."  Grafton  and 
Camden  felt  that  their  power  was  gone.  They  ought  to  have 
resigned  and  denounced  their  dangerous  colleague.  The  tea-duties 
were  to  be  retained  upon  the  principle  maintained  by  the  king, 
that  "  there  must  always  be  one  tax,  to  keep  up  the  right." 

Whilst  the  king's  ministers  were  thus  divided  upon  the  question 
of  which  few  men  saw  the  real  importance,  a  demonstration  of 
opinion  was  taking  place  in  one  of  the  colonies,  of  far  more  signifi- 
cance than  the  riots  at  Boston,  and  the  meeting  of  its  Convention. 
Lord  Hillsborough  had  removed  sir  Jeffrey  Amherst  from  the  post 
of  governor  of  Virginia,  and  had  appointed  in  his  place  lord 
Boutetort,  who,  in  a  lucrative  American  office,  could  repair  the 
consequences  of  his  extravagance  at  home.  In  1758  America  had 
been  called  "  the  hospital  of  England  ;  "  the  places  in  the  gift  of 
the  Crown  being  rilled  "  with  broken  Members  of  Parliament,  of 
bad  if  any  principle  ;  valets  de  chambre,  electioneering  scoundrels, 
and  even  livery  servants."  *  Lord  Boutetort  was  a  faded  courtier 
whose  rank  would  be  acceptable  to  the  aristocratic  families  of 
Virginia,  and  whose  parade  might  dazzle  the  eyes  of  discontented 
politicians.  Boutetort,  the  only  governor  who  had  appeared  in 
Virginia  within  memory,  opened  the  Session  of  the  Legislature  of 
Virginia,  at  Williamsburg,  with  royal  pomp.  He  went  to  the 
House  of  Representatives  in  a  state  carriage,  drawn  by  six  white 
horses.  He  gave  splendid  entertainments.  A  dutiful  address  was 
presented  to  him,  which  he  answered  with  the  most  perfect  cour- 
tesy, f  But  there  were  men  in  that  Assembly  of  a  character  not  to 
be  propitiated  by  cream-coloured  horses  or  sumptuous  feasts. 
George  Washington,  Patrick  Henry,  Thomas  Jefferson,  Peyton 
Randolph,  were  members  of  that  Assembly.  The  House  of  Bur- 
gesses followed  up  its  dutiful  Address  by  unanimous  Resolutions, 
in  which  they  asserted  that  the  right  of  laying  taxes  on  Virginia 

*  Letter  of  General  Huske  in  Phillimore's  "  Memoirs  of  Lord  Lyttelton." 
t  Bancroft,  "  American  Revolution,"  vol.  iii.  p.  309. 


128  HISTORY   OF    ENGLAND. 

was  exclusively  vested  in  its  own  Legislature ;  and  pronounced 
that  the  mode  of  trial  recommended  in  Parliament  upon  charges  of 
high  treason,  was  illegal  and  unconstitutional.  The  governor, 
without  waiting  for  an  official  communication,  dissolved  the  As- 
sembly. On  the  next  day  the  members  assembled  at  the  Raleigh 
tavern  ;  and  in  a  room  called  "  The  Apollo  " — probably  in  memory 
of  the  famous  Apollo  Room  where  Ben  Jonson  prescribed  his 
"Leges  Conviviales" — eighty-eight  pledged  themselves  not  to 
import  or  purchase  certain  articles  of  British  merchandise,  whilst 
the  Revenue  Act  was  unrepealed,  and  signed  Resolutions  to  that 
effect.  The  example  spread.  Pennsylvania  approved  the  Resolu- 
tions. Delaware  adopted  them. 

The  Assembly  of  Massachusetts  was  at  last  legally  convened  in 
May,  1769.  The  members  complained  that  they  could  not  discuss 
the  public  affairs  with  freedom,  being  surrounded  with  an  armed 
force.  The  governor  told  them  he  had  no  authority  over  the  ships 
in  the  port  or  the  troops  in  the  town.  The  place  of  assembling 
was  removed  to  the  town  of  Cambridge.  The  two  authorities 
continued  hostile,  and  the  Assembly  was  prorogued.  Sir  Francis 
Bernard  was  recalled  to  England ;  and  a  lieutenant-governor, 
Hutchinson,  an  American,  remained  in  authority.  Then  com- 
menced a  series  of  outrages  on  the  part  of  the  leaders  of  the  non- 
importation agreement,  which  was  disgraceful  to  the  cause  which 
would  have  had  far  better  argument  in  moderation.  Obnoxious 
persons  were  tarred  and  feathered.  At  a  public  dinner  "  strong 
halters,  firm  blocks,  and  sharp  axes,  to  such  as  deserve  them,"  was 
one  of  the  toasts.*  These  excesses,  which  are  slightly  passed  over 
by  the  historian  of  the  American  Revolution,  elicited  the  following 
remarks  from  lord  Chatham,  strenuous  as  he  was  in  contending 
for  the  right  of  America  to  be  untaxed  by  Great  Britain.  His 
words  are  not  reported  in  the  Parliamentary  History,  but  they  are 
given  in  a  letter  from  Mr.  Johnson,  Agent  for  Connecticut,  f  "  I 
have  been  thought  to  be,  perhaps,  too  much  the  friend  of  America. 
I  own  I  am  a  friend  to  that  country.  I  love  the  Americans 
because  they  love  liberty,  and  I  love  them  for  the  noble  efforts 
they  made  in  the  last  war.  But  I  must  own  I  find  fault  with  them 
in  many  things ;  I  think  they  carry  matters  too  far ;  they  have 
been  wrong  in  many  respects.  I  think  the  idea  of  drawing  money 
from  them  by  taxes  as  ill-judged.  Trade  is  your  object  with  them, 
and  they  should  be  encouraged.  But  (I  wish  every  sensible  Amer- 
ican, both  here  and  in  that  country,  heard  what  I  say.)  if  they  carry 

*  Bancroft,  vol.  iii.  p.  342. 

t  Note  of  Mr.  Jared  Sparkes,  in  his  edition  of  Franklin's  Works. 


REPEAL   OF   DUTIES,    EXCEPT   THAT   ON   TEAS.  I2Q 

their  notions  of  liberty  too  far,  as  I  fear  they  do,  if  they  will  not  be 
subject  to  the  laws  of  this  country,  especially  if  they  would  dis- 
engage themselves  from  the  laws  of  trade  and  navigation,  of  which 
I  see  too  many  symptoms,  as  much  of  an  American  as  I  am,  they 
have  not  a  more  determined  opposer  than  they  will  find  in  me." 

We  have  now  reached  the  period  of  lord  North's  administra- 
tion. On  the  5th  of  March,  1770,  on  the  House  of  Commons 
proceeding  to  take  into  consideration  the  petition  of  the  Merchants 
of  London  trading  to  North  America,  the  First  Lord  of  the  Treas- 
ury, in  a  temperate  speech,  moved  the  repeal  of  such  portions  of 
the  Act  of  1767,  as  laid  duties  upon  glass  and  other  articles, 
omitting  any  mention  of  tea.  "  I  cannot  propose,"  he  said,  "  any 
further  repeal  than  what  it  was  my  intention  to  promise  them.  The 
Americans,  by  their  subsequent  behaviour,  have  not  deserved  any 
particular  indulgence  from  this  country."  Upon  this  principle, 
many  a  mistaken  policy  has  been  persisted  in,  out  of  pure  defiance 
of  the  excesses  which  that  policy  has  provoked.  "  We  will  not 
be  driven  to  repeal,  by  any  threats  held  out  to  us,"  said  the  minis- 
ter. He  anticipated  no  larger  revenue  than  i2,ooo/.  a  year  from 
the  tea  duties,  but  he  would  not  give  up  the  right  to  tax  America 
which  was  asserted  in  the  preamble  of  the  Act  imposing  the  du- 
ties. There  was  much  discussion  upon  the  particular  point  in  dis- 
pute ;  but  colonel  Barre"  took  a  broad  view  of  the  whole  question  : 
"  For  three  years  we  have  seen  nothing  but  the  folly  and  absurdity 
of  succeeding  administrations.  If  the  former  erred,  they  had  the 
sense  of  the  nation  with  them;  they  acted  upon  a  system.  We 
are  now  proceeding  upon  no  system  at  all :  what  we  do  carries 

nothing  with  it  but  monuments  of  our  tyranny  and  folly 

Why  suffer  these  discontents  to  rankle  in  the  minds  of  your 
American  subjects  ?  I  suspect  we  are  not  safe  behind  this  peace. 
With  your  colonies  discontented,  what  would  be  your  condition  if 
a  war  should  break  out  ?  Could  you  depend  upon  receiving  their 
support?  With  their  minds  soured,  they  might,  perhaps,  go 
further :  they  might  take  you  at  an  unlucky  moment,  and  compel 
you  to  come  into  their  terms."  The  proposition  of  lord  North 
was  carried  by  a  majority  of  sixty-two.  Franklin,  writing  to  a  friend 
in  America,  says  of  this  result,  "  I  think  the  repeal  would  have 
been  carried,  but  that  the  ministry  were  persuaded  by  governor 
Bernard,  and  some  lying  letters,  said  to  be  from  Boston,  that  the 
associations  not  to  import  were  all  breaking  to  pieces  ;  that  America 
was  in  the  greatest  distress  for  the  want  of  the  goods  ;  that  we 
could  not  possibly  subsist  any  longer  without  them,  and  must,  of 
course,  submit  to  any  terms  Parliament  should  think  fit  to  impose 
VOL.  VI. —Q 


T3«  HISTORY   OF    ENGLAND. 

upon  us.  The  ministerial  people  gave  out,  that  certain  advices 
were  received  of  our  beginning  to  break  our  agreement ;  of  our 
attempts  to  manufacture  proving  all  abortive,  and  ruining  the  un- 
dertakers ;  of  our  distress  for  want  of  goods,  and  dissensions 
among  ourselves,  which  promised  the  total  defeat  of  all  such  kind 
of  combinations,  and  the  prevention  of  them  for  the  future,  if  the 
government  were  not  urged  imprudently  to  repeal  the  duties.  But 
now  that  it  appears,  from  late  and  authentic  accounts,  that  agree- 
ments continue  in  full  force,  that  a  ship  is  actually  returned  from 
Boston  to  Bristol  with  nails  and  glass  (articles  that  were  thought 
of  the  utmost  necessity),  and  that  the  ships,  which  were  waiting 
here  for  the  determination  of  Parliament,  are  actually  returning  to 
North  America  in  their  ballast,  the  tone  begins  to  change." 

On  the  same  day  that  the  British  Parliament  was  voting  against 
the  repeal  of  the  tea-duties,  the  people  of  Boston  were  fighting  with 
British  soldiers  in  their  streets.  The  story  of  this  conflict  has  been 
related  as  if,  as  is  generally  the  case,  there  were  not  egregious 
faults  on  both  sides.  "  At  the  cry  of  innocent  blood  shed  by  the 
soldiery,  the  continent  heaved  like  a  troubled  ocean,"  writes  Mr. 
Bancroft.*  There  was  a  quarrel  between  a  soldier  and  some  work- 
men at  a  rope-walk.  The  soldier  challenged  one  to  fight  in  the 
good  old  English  fashion  of  fisty-cuffs  ;  was  beaten ;  and  came  back 
with  some  of  his  companions  for  revenge.  A  general  scuffle  en- 
sued, and  the  troops  were  driven  to  their  barracks.  Sunday  inter- 
vened ;  but  on  Monday,  the  5th  of  March,  the  troops,  who  had 
been  stimulating  each  other,  came  forth  in  the  evening,  and  offer- 
ing some  insults  to  the  townsmen,  there  was  a  serious  tumult.  This 
was  at  length  quieted.  The  more  prudent  of  the  citizens  cried 
"Home,  home  ;  "  but  many  boys  remained,  daring  the  soldiers,  and 
calling  them  "  lobsters."  They  at  last  surrounded  a  sentinel ;  and 
captain  Preston,  the  captain  of  the  day,  ordered  the  main  guard  to 
turn  out.  The  captain,  a  corporal,  and  six  men  marched  to  the 
rescue  of  the  sentinel.  They  began  to  load ;  and  then  a  party  of 
the  townsmen  passed  along  the  front  of  the  soldiers,  and  struck 
their  muskets  with  sticks.  They  dared  the  guard  to  fire,  calling 
them  "  lobster  scoundrels."  One  of  the  soldiers  received  a  blow 
with  a  stick  thrown  at  him,  and  he  shot  a  mulatto.  Two  other  per- 
sons were  killed,  and  eight  wounded.  A  warrant  was  issued  against 
Preston,  who  surrendered  himself,  and  the  soldiers  were  committed 
to  prison.  With  great  good  sense  governor  Hutchinson  and  the 
colonel  in  command  removed  all  the  troops  from  the  town.  The 
affray  was  called  "  a  massacre."  When  Preston  was  tried  for 

*  "-American  Revolution,"  vol.  iii.  p.  386. 


ENCOUNTER    WITH    THE    MILITARY    AT    BOSTON.  131 

murder  a  few  months  afterwards,  no  counsel  dared  undertake  his 
defence  ;  till  John  Adams,  a  rising  advocate,  devoted  to  the  popu- 
lar cause,  but  more  devoted  to  his  duty,  accepted  a  brief ;  and  the 
jury  returned  a  verdict  of  Not  Guilty.  The  high-minded  barrister 
became  the  President  of  the  United  States.  Two  of  the  soldiers 
were  found  Guilty  of  Manslaughter.  On  the  4th  of  May,  Burke 
brought  forward  a  motion  for  inquiry  into  the  late  disasters  in 
America.  On  that  occasion  George  Grenville  made  his  last  speech 
in  Parliament,  he  dying  in  the  following  November.  His  conclud- 
ing words,  in  giving  assent  to  Burke's  motion,  were  solemn  and 
prophetic  :  "  If,  by  the  neglect  of  his  ministers,  our  beloved  sove- 
reign should  leave  his  crown  to  his  successor  diminished  and  dis- 
honoured, then,  sir,  let  those  who  brought  the  misery  upon  us,  rise 
up  severally  and  say,  '  I  was  the  man  who  formed  these  incompe- 
tent plans  ;  I  was  the  man  who  advised  this  plan  and  that  plan  ;  I 
was  the  man  to  whom  all  these  fatal  consequences  are  owing.' " 

When  the  American  colonists  came  to  know  that  the  British  Par- 
liament had  repealed  all  the  duties  laid  by  the  Act  of  1767,  except 
that  on  tea,  the  spirit  which  had  prompted  the  non-importation 
agreements  was  somewhat  allayed.  The  citizens  of  New  York  de- 
termined by  a  large  majority  to  resume  importations  from  England ; 
and  many  orders  were  despatched  in  July  for  every  kind  of  mer- 
chandise but  tea.  Other  provinces  were  indignant  with  the  New 
Yorkists.  Massachusetts  maintained  a  position  of  sullen  defiance. 
The  jurymen  of  Boston  had  manifested  that  in  the  discharge  of 
their  duty,  in  the  trial  of  captain  Preston  and  the  soldiers,  they  were 
not  to  be  influenced  by  public  clamour.  The  conduct  of  John 
Adams  showed  how  high-minded  were  many  of  those  opponents  of" 
an  obstinate  policy,  who,  in  parliamentary  language,  were  usually 
called  rebels.  "  The  language  we  hold,"  said  colonel  Barre',  "  is 
little  short  of  calling  the  Americans  rebels  ;  the  language  they  hold 
is  little  short  of  calling  us  tyrants — rebels  on  one  side,  tyrants  on 
the  other."  It  was  thus  that  the  men  of  England  and  the  men  of 
America  were  mutually  inflamed.  Although,  for  two  or  three  years, 
there  was  in  America  an  apparent  calm — a  deceptive  absence  of 
violence  which  looked  like  peace — the  time  was  rapidly  approach- 
ing when  the  exhortation  of  Mr.  Wedderburn,  in  1770,  before  he 
became  lord  North's  solicitor-general,  would  be  looked  upon  as  a 
prophecy :  "  How,  sir,  will  it  hereafter  sound  in  the  annals  of  the 
present  reign,  that  all  America — the  fruit  of  so  many  years'  settle- 
ment, nurtured  by  this  country  at  the  price  of  so  much  blood  and 
treasure — was  lost  to  the  Crown  of  Great  Britain  in  the  reign  of 
George  III.?"*  Whilst  there  is  a  lull  in  this  trans-atlantic  tenv 

*  "  Cavendish  Debates,"  vol.  ii.  p.  30. 


132  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

pest,  let  us  revert  to  our  domestic  affairs — petty  in  their 
but  very  significant  in  their  tendencies. 

The  parliamentary  conflict  on  the  question  of  the  Middlesex 
election  was  not  likely  to  drop  after  the  great  debates  on  the  Ad- 
dress at  the  opening  of  the  Session  of  1770.  Mr.  Sheriff  Town- 
send,  in  his  place  in  the  House  of  Commons  on  the  7th  of  Febru- 
ary, declared,  upon  going  into  a  Committee  of  Ways  and  Means, 
that  it  was  not  his  intention  to  pay  the  Land-tax.  He  would  state 
the  case  as  on  the  part  of  the  freeholders  of  Middlesex.  Their 
lawful  representative,  Mr.  Wilkes,  was  kept  out  of  the  House  by 
force  and  violence.  Mr.  Luttrell  was  not  their  representative.  Lord 
North  told  the  worthy  sheriff  that  if  any  demand  upon  him  was  ille- 
gal, the  law  would  relieve  him.  He  refused  to  pay  the  tax ;  his  goods 
were  distrained;  he  brought  an  action  against  the  collector;  and  lord 
Mansfield  having  charged  the  jury  that  the  question  was  no  other 
than  whether  there  was  a  legislative  power  in  this  county,  the  jury 
found  for  the  defendant.  The  declaration  of  Mr.  Townsend  was 
an  indication  of  the  prevailing  temper  of  the  citizens  of  London. 
On  the  I4th  of  March,  the  lord  mayor  and  sheriffs,  a  few  aldermen, 
and  a  great  number  of  the  common  council,  exercising  the  right  of 
the  City  to  present  addresses  to  the  king  in  person,  arrived,  with 
an  immense  concourse  of  people  at  St.  James's.  The  address,  re- 
monstrance, and  petition  offered  on  this  occasion,  prayed  for  the 
dissolution  of  Parliament,  and  the  removal  of  evil  ministers  ;  spoke 
of  "  secret  and  malign  influence  "  which  had  deprived  the  people  of 
their  dearest  rights  ;  and  declared  that  the  present  House  of  Com- 
mons did  not  represent  the  people.  «  The  king's  answer  was 
"  deemed  by  some  to  have  been  uncommonly  harsh."  *  His  majesty 
said,  "  I  shall  always  be  ready  to  receive  the  requests,  and  to  listen 
to  the  complaints  of  my  subjects  ;  but  it  gives  me  great  concern  to 
find  that  any  of  them  should  have  been  so  far  misled,  as  to  offer 
me  an  Address  and  Remonstrance,  the  contents  of  which  I  cannot 
but  consider  as  disrespectful  to  me,  injurious  to  my  Parliament,  and 
irreconcileable  to  the  principles  of  the  constitution.''  A  debate 
took  place  the  next  day  in  the  House  of  Commons,  upon  a  motion 
for  an  Address  to  his  majesty  that  he  would  direct  a  copy  of  this 
paper  and  his  answer  to  be  laid  before  them.  The  lord  mayor 
(Beckford),  alderman  Trecothick,  and  sheriffs  Townsend  and  Saw- 
bridge,  boldly  defended  the  language  of  the  Remonstrance.  Lord 
North  told  them  that  they  would  be  remembered  as  the  John  Lil- 
burns  and  Dr.  Sacheverells  of  their  day.  Burke  called  to  the 
memory  of  the  House  the  words  of  lordFalkland,  "  Peace  !  peace !  * 

*  "  Annual  Register,"  177,  p.  790. 


REMONSTRANCE   OF   THE   CITY   OF    LONDON.  133 

The  Commons,  by  a  large  majority,  agreed  upon  an  Address  to  the 
king ;  having  resolved  that  "  to  deny  the  legality  of  the  present 
Parliament,  and  to  assert  that  the  proceedings  thereof  are  not  valid, 
is  highly  unwarrantable."  The  general  opinion  was,  that  the  lord 
mayor  and  sheriffs  courted  commitment.*  On  the  23rd  of  May, 
the  lord  mayor,  aldermen,  and  common  council,  presented  a  second 
Remonstrance  to  the  king  at  St.  James's.  Walpole  says,  "  it  had 
been  drawn  up  by  lord  Chatham,  or  formed  on  one  of  his  late 
speeches."  They  lamented  that  his  majesty  had  been  advised  to 
lay  the  weight  of  his  displeasure  upon  the  citizens  of  London.  "  We 
are  deeply  concerned  that  what  the  law  allows,  and  the  constitution 
teaches,  has  been  misconstrued  by  ministers,  instruments  of  that 
influence  which  shakes  the  realm  into  disrespect  for  your  majesty." 
They  demanded  ''  a  full,  free,  and  unmutilated  Parliament."  They 
concluded  by  saying,  "we  offer  our  constant  prayers  to  Heaven 
that  your  majesty  may  reign  as  kings  only  can  reign,  in  and  by  the 
hearts  of  a  loyal,  dutiful,  and  free  peeple."  The  king's  answer 
conveyed  no  change  of  opinion  on  the  proceedings  of  the  City :  "  I 
should  have  been  wanting  to  the  public  as  well  as  to  myself,  if  I 
had  not  expressed  my  dissatisfaction  at  the  late  Address.  My 
sentiments  on  that  subject  continue  the  same."  The  king  had  no 
sooner  spoken  his  answer,  writes  Walpole,  "  than,  to  the  astonish- 
ment of  the  whole  court,  Beckford,  the  lord  mayor,  desired  leave 
to  say  a  few  words.  This  was  totally  unprecedented.  Copies  of 
all  intended  harangues  are  first  transmitted  privately  to  court,  that 
the  king  may  be  prepared  with  an  answer.  On  this  occasion  the 
king  was  totally  at  a  loss  how  to  act.  He  was  sitting  in  ceremony 
on  his  throne,  and  had  no  means  to  consult,  no  time  to  consider, 
what  to  do.  Remaining  silent  and  confounded,  Beckford  pro- 
ceeded." f  The  words  said  to  be  uttered  by  the  lord  mayor  are 
engraved  in  letters  of  gold  under  his  monument  in  the  Guildhall  of 
London.  Having  this  distinguished  record,  it  may  be  proper  here 
to  give  them  : — 

"  Most  gracious  Sovereign, — Will  your  majesty  be  pleased  so 
far  to  condescend  as  to  permit  the  mayor  of  your  royal  city  of 
London  to  declare  in  your  royal  presence,  in  behalf  of  his  fellow- 
citizens,  how  much  the  bare  apprehension  of  your  majesty's  dis- 
pleasure would  at  all  times  affect  their  minds.  The  declaration 
of  that  displeasure  has  already  filled  them  with  inexpressible  anx- 
iety and  with  the  deepest  affliction.  Permit  me,  sire,  to  assure 
your  majesty,  that  your  majesty  has  not  in  all  your  dominions  any 

*  "  Chatham  Correspondence,"  vol.  iii.  p.  429. 

t  "  Memoirs  ef  George  III.,"  vol.  iv.  p.  154.  . 


134  HISTORY   OF   ENGLAND. 

subjects  more  faithful,  more  dutiful,  or  more  affectionate  to  your 
majesty's  person  and  family,  or  more  ready  to  sacrifice  their  lives 
and  fortunes  in  the  maintenance  of  the  true  honour  and  dignity  of 
your  crown  We  do  therefore,  with  the  greatest  humility  and 
submission,  most  earnestly  supplicate  your  majesty  that  you  will 
not  dismiss  us  from  your  presence,  without  expressing  a  more  fa- 
vourable opinion  of  your  faithful  citizens,  and  without  some  com- 
fort, without  some  prospect  at  least  of  redress.  Permit  me,  sire, 
further  to  observe,  that  whoever  has  already  dared,  or  shall  here- 
after endeavour,  by  false  insinuations  and  suggestions,  to  alienate 
your  majesty's  affections  from  your  loyal  subjects  in  general,  and 
from  the  city  of  London  in  particular,  and  to  'withdraw  your  confi- 
dence in  and  regard  for  your  people,  is  an  enemy  to  your  majesty's 
person  and  family,  a  violator  of  the  public  peace,  and  a  betrayer 
of  your  happy  constitution,  as  it  was  established  at  the  glorious 
Revolution." 

Chatham  was  in  raptures.  Two  days  after  he  wrote  to  Beck- 
ford,  "  The  spirit  of  Old  England  spoke,  that  never-to-be-forgotten 
day  ....  Your  lordship's  mayoralty  will  be  revered,  till  the  con- 
stitution is  destroyed  and  forgotten."  Beckford  replied,  "  What  I 
spoke  in  the  king's  presence  was  uttered  in  the  language  of  truth, 
and  with  that  humility  and  submission  which  becomes  a  subject 
speaking  to  his  lawful  king."*  Certainly  the  constitution  was 
somewhat  outraged  when  a  subject  forgot  that  ministerial  responsi- 
bility ought  to  have  sheltered  his  lawful  king  from  a  personal  re- 
proof, f  Beckford  died  within  a  month  after  this  remarkable  im- 
pulse of  an  honest  but  over-zealous  partisanship.  The  agitations 
connected  with  the  Middlesex  election  soon  subsided.  The  term 
of  Wilkes's  imprisonment  had  expired  in  April ;  and,  in  his  posi- 
tion of  alderman,  he  became  more  a  city  agitator  than  a  demagogue 
to. stir  a  nation. 

In  the  ensuing  Session  of  Parliament,  in  1771,  there  was  a 
contest  between  the  House  of  Commons  and  the  Corporation  of 
London  which  was  eventually  productive  of  the  highest  public 
benefit.  Although  both  Houses  held  strenuously  to  the  principle 
that  it  was  the  highest  offence  to  publish  their  debates,  the 
speeches  of  particular  members  were  frequently  printed.  Some- 
times the  privileges  of  Parliament  were  strictly  enforced.  At 
other  times  little  notice  was  taken  ef  reports,  with  stars  and  initials 
in  newspapers  and  magazines.  The  thirteenth  Parliament  of  Great 
Britain  was  one  in  which  the  majorities  of  both  Houses  were  on 
the  anti-popular  side  ;  and  thus  the  nation  had  only  occasional 

*  "Chatham  Correspondence,"  vol.  iii.  pp.  462-3.  t  See  ante,  p.  55. 


PRINTERS   ARRESTED   FOR   PUBLISHING   DEBATES.         135 

glimpses  of  the  proceedings  of  those  who  presided  over  their  des- 
tinies. On  the  8th  of  February,  1771,  colonel  Onslow  complained 
to  the  House  of  Commons,  that  two  newspapers  had  printed  a  mo- 
tion he  had  made,  and  a  speech  against  it  ;  and  moreover  had 
called  him,  "  little  Cocking  George."  Upon  his  motion,  the  papers 
were  delivered  in  and  read  ;  and  the  printer  of  the  "  Gazetteer,"  R. 
Thompson,  and  the  printer  of  the  "  Middlesex  Chronicle,"  J.  Whe- 
ble,  were  ordered  to  attend  the  House.  The  printers  could  not 
be  found  to  serve  the  orders  upon  them,  and  then  the  House  ad- 
dressed the  king  that  he  would  issue  his  royal  proclamation  for 
their  apprehension.  On  the  1 2th  of  March,  colonel  Onslow  said 
he  was  determined  to  bring  this  matter  to  an  issue.  "  To-day  I 
shall  only  bring  before  the  House  three  brace,  for  printing  the  de- 
bates." This  wholesale  proceeding  was  resisted  by  motions  for 
adjournment  and  amendments,  which  protracted  the  debates  till 
five  o'clock  in  the  morning,  during  which  the  House  divided 
twenty-three  times.  *  One  member  moved  an  amendment  to  the 
motion  for  summoning  one  of  the  printers,  by  adding,  "  together  with 
all  his  compositors,  pressmen,  correctors,  blackers  and  devils  ;  "  and 
Burke  said,  "  It  would  be  as  irregular  for  the  printer  to  come  to 
your  bar  without  them,  as  it  would  be  for  you,  sir,  to  come  to  the 
House  without  your  mace,  or  a  marshal  of  the  King's  Bench  with- 
out his  tipstaff,  or  a  first  lord  of  the  treasury  without  his  major- 
ity." f  Four  of  the  printers  obeyed  the  orders  of  the  House  ;  made 
their  submission,  and  were  discharged.  But  the  affair  now  took  a 
more  serious  turn.  The  serjeant-at-arms  had  been  ordered  to 
take  J.  Miller,  of  the  "  London  Evening  Post "  into  custody. 
Wheble  and  Thompson  had  been  previously  arrested  collusively, 
by  some  friends  or  servants  ;  and  being  taken  before  alderman 
Wilkes,  and  alderman  Oliver,  were  discharged.  Miller  was  appre- 
hended by  the  officer  of  the  House  of  Commons,  at  his  house  in 
the  city ;  but  the  officer  was  immediately  himself  taken  into  cus- 
tody by  a  city  constable.  The  parties  went  before  the  lord  mayor, 
Crosby ;  who  was  attended  by  Wilkes  and  Oliver.  The  lord  mayor 
decided  that  the  arrest  of  a  citizen  without  the  authority  of  one  of 
the  city  magistrates,  was  a  violation  of  its  charters  ;  and  ordered 
Miller  to  be  released,  and  the  officer  of  the  Commons  to  give  bail 
to  answer  a  charge  of  assault.  The  king,  always  impatient  of  re- 
sistance to  authority,  wrote  on  the  I7th  of  March  to  lord  North. 
— "  If  lord  mayor  and  Oliver  be  not  committed,  the  authority  of 
the  House  of  Commons  is  annihilated."  On  the  first  complaint 
of  colonel  Onslow  he  had  written  to  his  minister,  "  Is  not  the 
*  "Annual  Register,"  1771.  t  "  Cavendish  Debates,"  vol.  ii.  p.  391. 


136  HISTORY  OF   ENGLAND. 

House  of  Lords  the  best  court  to  bring  such  miscreants  before,  as 
it  can  fine  as  well  as  imprison,  and  has  broader  shoulders  to  sup- 
port the  odium  of  so  salutary  a  measure  ?  " 

On  the  1 8th  of  March,  the  deputy-serjeant-at-arms  was  desired 
by  the  Speaker  to  give  an  account  of  the  transactions  in  the  City. 
It  was  then  moved  that  Brass  Crosby,  esq.,  lord  mayor,  and  a 
member  of  parliament,  should  attend  in  his  place  the  next  day. 
The  lord  mayor  although  he  was  ill,  came  amidst  the  huzzas  of  a 
crowd  that  echoed  through  the  House.  He  was  permitted  to  sit 
whilst  defending  his  conduct ;  and  then  he  desired  to  go  home, 
having  been  in  his  bed-chamber  sixteen  or  seventeen  days.  The 
lord  mayor  was  allowed  to  retire.  Charles  Fox  said  ''  there  are 
two  other  criminals,  alderman  Oliver  and  alderman  Wilkes,"  for 
which  expression  "  criminals,"  he  was  gently  reproved  by  Wedder- 
burn,  who  had  become  solicitor-general.  Alderman  Oliver  was 
then  ordered  to  attend  in  his  place.  Wilkes  had  written  a  letter 
to  declare  that  he  was  the  lawful  member  for  Middlesex,  and 
would  only  appear  in  the  House  as  a  member.  Mr.  Calcraft  writes 
to  lord  Chatham,  lt  The  ministers  avow  Wilkes  too  dangerous  to 
meddle  with.  He  is  to  do  what  he  pleases ;  we  are  to  submit.  So 
his  majesty  orders  ;  he  will  have  '  nothing  more  to  do  with  that 
devil  Wilkes.'  "*  On  the  25th  of  March  the  lord  mayor  and  alder- 
man Oliver  were  in  their  places.  In  the  course  of  the  debate  upon 
a  proposal  to  commit  them  to  the  Tower,  members  came  in,  and 
reported  that  they  had  been  insulted  on  their  way  to  the  House. 
The  magistrates  of  Westminster  were  called,  and  were  ordered  to 
disperse  the  mob.  The  debate  proceeded.  The  lord  mayor  being 
again  permitted  to  withdraw,  said  he  should  submit  himself  to 
whatever  the  House  should  do.  The  populace  took  the  horses 
from  his  coach,  and  drew  him  in  triumph  to  the  Mansion  House. 
After  a  sitting  of  nine  hours,  a  motion  for  adjournment  was  re- 
jected. When  the  Speaker  asked  alderman  Oliver  what  he  had  to 
say  in  his  defence,  he  replied — "  I  know  the  punishment  I  am  to 
receive  is  determined  upon.  I  have  nothing  to  say,  neither  in  my 
ov/n  defence,  nor  in  defence  of  the  city  of  London.  Do  what  you 
please.  I  defy  you."  f 

Before  the  motion  for  committing  alderman  Oliver  to  the  Tower 
was  carried,  colonel  Barre  left  the  House,  followed  by  Dunning, 
and  about  a  dozen  other  members.  He  wrote  to  Chatham,  "  I 
spoke  to  this  question  about  five  minutes  only,  but  I  believe  with 
great  violence."  To  the  Tower  was  Oliver  conducted  quietly  at 

*  "  Chatham  Correspondence,"  vol.  iv.  p.  143. 
t  "  Cavendish  Debates,"  vol.  ii.  p.  461. 


RIOTS.  137 

seven  o'clock  on  the  morning  of  the  27th.  On  that  day  the  lord 
mayor  again  came  to  the  House  to  attend  in  his  place.  A  tremen- 
dous riot  ensued.  Mr.  Calcraft  described  the  scene  to  lord  Chat* 
ham  :  "  The  concourse  of  people  who  attended  the  lord  mayor  is 
incredible.  They  seized  lord  North,  broke  his  chariot,  had  got 
him  amongst  them,  and  but  for  sir  William  Meredith's  interfering, 
would  probably  have  demolished  him.  This,  with  the  insults  to 
other  members,  caused  an  adjournment  of  business  for  some 
hours.  The  justice  came  to  the  bar  to  declare  they  could  not  read 
the  Riot  Act,  and  that  their  constables  were  overpowered.  The 
sheriffs  were  then  called  upon  :  they  went  into  the  crowd,  attended 
by  many  members,  and  quieted  them  by  five  o'clock;  when  we 
proceeded  on  business."  Upon  the  resumption  of  the  debate  lord 
North  displayed  his  anxiety  by  his  tears,  and  his  courage  by  his 
words.  "  I  certainly  did  not  come  into  office  at  my  own  desire. 
Had  I  my  own  wish,  I  would  have  quitted  it  a  hundred  times.  My 
love  of  ease  and  retirement  urged  me  to  it ;  but  as  to  my  resigna- 
tion now,  look  at  the  situation  of  the  country  ;  look  at  the  transac- 
tions of  this  day,  and  then  say  whether  it  would  be  possible  for 
any  man  with  a  grain  of  spirit,  with  a  grain  of  sense,  with  the  least 
love  for  his  country,  to  think  of  withdrawing  from  the  service  of 
his  king  and  his  country  ....  There  are  but  two  ways  in  which  I 
can  go  out  now — by  the  will  of  my  sovereign,  which  I  shall  be 
ready  to  obey ;  or  the  pleasure  of  the  gentlemen  now  at  our  doors, 
when  they  shall  be  able  to  do  a  little  more  than  they  have  done 
this  day."  * 

The  lord  mayor  and  alderman  Oliver  remained  prisoners  in  the 
Tower,  till  the  Parliament  was  prorogued  on  the  8th  of  May.  A 
prorogation  suspends  the  power  under  which  the  privilege  of  com- 
mittal is  exercised.  The  House  wisely  resolved  not  to  renew  the 
perilous  dispute  with  the  City  in  the  ensuing  session.  With  equal 
wisdom  the  printers  of  the  debates  were  no  more  threatened  or 
arrested.  On  the  ist  of  May,  Chatham  told  the  Peers  some  whole- 
some truths,  on  the  subject  of  the  publication  of  parliamentary 
proceedings.  The  dissatisfaction  of  the  people  "  had  made  them 
uncommonly  attentive  to  the  proceedings  of  Parliament.  Hence 
the  publication  of  the  parliamentary  debates.  And  where  was  the 
injury,  if  the  members  acted  upon  honest  principles  ?  For  a  public 
assembly  to  be  afraid  of  having  their  deliberations  published  is 
monstrous,  and  speaks  for  itself."  It  was  some  years  before  these 
principles  were  completely  recognised,  in  the  conviction  that  a 
full  and  impartial  report  of  the  debates  in  Parliament  is  one  of  the 
*"  Cavendish  Debates." 


138  HISTORY   OF   ENGLAND. 

best  securities  for  freedom,  for  a  respect  for  the  laws,  and  for 
raising  up  a  national  tribunal  of  public  opinion  in  the  place  of  the 
passions  of  demagogues  and  the  violence  of  mobs.  The  triumph 
of  the  "  miscreants  "  of  1771  led  the  way  to  the  complete  estab- 
lishment of  that  wonderful  system  of  reporting,  which  has  ren- 
dered the  newspaper  press  of  this  country  the  clearest  mirror  of 
the  aggregate  thought  of  a  reflecting  people. 


OFFICERS    OF    STATE. 


139 


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HISTORY   OF    ENGLAND. 


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*c   r^  i 

FOREIGN   AFFAIRS.  141 


CHAPTER  VIII. 

Foreign  affairs — Cession  of  Corsica  to  France. — The  Falkland  Islands. — First  Partition 
of  Poland. — War  between  Turkey  and  Russia. — Acquisitions  of  Russia. — Suppres- 
sion of  the  Jesuits — Home  Politics. — Subscription  to  Thirty-nine  Articles. — Test 
Act — Thirtieth  of  January. — Repeal  of  laws  against  forestalling. — The  queen  of 
Denmark. — Death  of  the  Princess  Dowager. — The  Royal  Marriage  Act. — Retrospect 
of  Indian  affairs. — East  India  Company's  Regulation  Act. — Teas,  duty  free,  to  the 
Colonies. 

THE  turbulence  of  home  politics,  and  the  threatening  aspect  of 
the  colonies,  left  little  inclination  in  the  people  to  think  much  of 
foreign  affairs.  The  cession  by  Genoa,  in  1768,  of  Corsica  to  France, 
and  the  resistance  by  the  Corsican  patriot,  Paoli,  to  the  occupation  of 
the  island  by  French  troops,  excited  interest  in  a  few  who  could 
sympathize  with  heroic  actions.  Boswell  wrote  an  account  of  Cor- 
sica. The  cold  Walpole  advises  Gray  to  read  it :  "  What  relates  to 
Paoli  will  amuse  you  much."*  The  impressible  Gray  replies,  "It  has 
moved  me  strangely ;  all,  I  mean,  that  relates  to  Paoli.  He  is  a 
man  born  two  thousand  years  after  his  time."  Corsica  was  sub- 
jugated in  1769,  and  Paoli  became  an  exile  from  his  country,  seek- 
ing refuge  in  England.  A  month  after  Corsica  was  annexed  to 
France,  Napoleon  Bonaparte  was  born  at  Ajaccio.  In  1768  Eng- 
land was  within  a  hair's-breadth  of  making  war  with  France  in  the 
matter  of  Corsica.  "  Corsica  a  province  of  France  is  terrible  to  me,'' 
said  Burke.  The  duke  of  Grafton  did  not  go  to  war ;  but  he  sent 
secret  supplies  of  arms  and  ammunition  to  Paoli,  who  said  he  could 
hold  out  eighteen  months.  Insurrections  continued  through  1 770  and 
1771.  The  French  minister,  the  duke  de  Choiseul,  who  had  an- 
nexed Corsica,  and  was  anxious  for  a  rupture  with  England,  was 
dismissed  from  power  in  1770.  "My  minister  wishes  for  war," 
said  Louis  XV.,  "but  I  do  not."  If  war  had  come,  Corsica  would 
most  probably  have  been  a  British  possession  ;  Napoleon  Bona- 
parte a  subject  of  the  British  crown.  He  might  have  chosen 
England  for  the  theatre  of  his  rising  ambition  ;  have  commanded 
a  company  of  British  grenadiers  in  the  war  of  the  French  Revolu- 
tion ;  and  have  won  a  green  ribbon  instead  of  an  empire. 

In  1770,  whilst  the  influence  of  the  duke  de  Choiseul  was  para- 

*  Feb.  18,  1768. 


142  HISTORY   OF    ENGLAND. 

mount,  Great  Britain  became  involved  in  a  dispute  with  Spain,  which 
very  nearly  led  to  a  war  in  which  France  would  most  probably  have 
joined.  The  Falkland  Islands — who  cares  now  to  enter  into  the  de- 
tails of  a  quarrel  about  a  possession  which  Johnson  calls  "tempest- 
beaten  barrenness  ?  "  These  two  islands  in  the  South  Atlantic  were 
known  by  English  navigators  at  the  end  of  the  sixteenth  century. 
They  were  not  colonised  till  the  French,  in  1 764,  formed  a  settlement 
in  East  Falkland.  The  British  settled  in  West  Falkland  in  1767.  The 
French  at  that  time  ceded  their  colony  to  the  Spaniards  ;  and  the 
Spaniards,  at  a  period  of  profound  peace,  in  1770,  sent  a  force  of 
five  frigates,  with  sixteen  hundred  men,  from  Buenos  Ayres,  and 
drove  the  British  from  their  fort  at  Port  Egmont.  Preparations 
for  war  were  instantly  made.  The  aggression  of  Spain  was  the 
chief  topic  of  the  speech  with  which  the  king  opened  the  session 
of  Parliament  on  the  I3th  of  November.  There  were  violent  de- 
bates in  both  Houses,  the  opposition  accusing  the  ministry  of  su- 
pineness  and  pusillanimity.  Johnson  wrote  a  pamphlet  in  defence 
of  the  government,  which  may  be  read,  now  the  particular  points 
of  the  quarrel  have  ceased  to  interest,  for  his  forcible  descriptions 
of  the  calamities  of  war,  and  his  declamation  against  the  folly  of 
plunging  two  countries  into  hostilities  upon  a  question  of  doubtful 
right.  The  Spanish  government  gave  way  to  remonstrance  Mr. 
Harris,  afterwards  lord  Malmesbury,  was  the  British  Charge  des 
Affaires  at  Madrid ;  and,  although  at  one  time  war  appeared  inevi- 
table, the  Spanish  court  finally  made  restitution.  Mr  Harris  had 
been  recalled  from  Spain,  in  consequence  of  the  language  of  the 
Spanish  ambassador  in  London.  He  was  twenty  leagues  from 
Madrid  on  his  way  home,  when  he  met  the  messenger  from  St. 
James's  who  was  sent  to  say  that  the  Spanish  envoy  had  conceded 
the  demands  of  the  British  government*  The  sudden  change 
was  in  consequence  of  the  fall  from  power  of  the  duke  de  Choiseul. 
England  and  Spain  left  the  naked  rocks  and  bogs  of  the  Falkland 
Islands  to  their  wild  cattle  ;  till  in  1840,  after  an  attempt  at  occupa- 
tion by  the  republic  of  Buenos  Ayres,  they  were  again  colonised 
by  the  English. 

The  first  Partition  of  Poland  by  Russia,  Prussia,  and  Austria, 
was  made  in  1772.  On  the  5th  of  August  definitive  treaties  were 
signed  between  these  powers,  by  which  nearly  a  third  of  the  Polish 
territory  was  divided  amongst  them.  To  Russia  was  assigned 
great  part  of  Lithuania;  to  Austria,  Galicia  and  portions  of  Podolia 
and  Cracow ;  to  Prussia,  Pomerania,  and  the  country  of  the  Vistula. 
Prussia  acquired  by  far  the  smallest  share  of  the  spoil  in  extent  of 

*  "  Diaries  and  Correspondence  of  the  Earl  of  Malnaesbury,"  vol.  i.  p.  61. 


FIRST   PARTITION    OF    POLAND.  143 

territory,  but  incomparably  the  most  valuable,  when  she  obtained 
Dantzic,  and  the  best  trading  towns  of  the  dismembered  country. 
The  events  which  led  to  this  partition,  or  rather  which  were  the 
excuses  for  it,  were  connected  with  the  religious  and  political  dis- 
sensions of  the  Polish  nobles,  priests,  and  commonalty.  An  elec- 
tive monarchy  was  necessarily  subject  to  the  intrusive  control  of  a 
powerful  neighbour.  After  the  death  of  John  Sobieski,  at  the  end 
of  the  seventeenth  century,  his  successors  Augustus  II.  and  Au- 
gustus 1 1 1.  were  little  more  than  the  representatives  of  the  court  of 
Russia.  The  influence  of  the  Czarina,  Catherine,  procured  the 
election  of  Stanislaus  Poniatowski.  The  favourite  of  the  profligate 
empress  was  lifted  into  a  throne  by  the  intrigues  of  one  party  of 
the  nobles,  supported  by  a  Russian  army.  From  1 764  to  1 772  two 
factions  were  struggling  about  civil  and  religious  privileges,  whilst 
their  country  was  more  and  more  exposed  to  the  danger  of  an  entire 
loss  of  its  independence.  Poland  could  scarcely  be  called  a  na- 
tion, if  by  a  nation  we  mean  a  community  of  various  classes,  with 
a  large  intermediate  class  between  the  highest  and  the  lowest. 
Poland  was  a  country  of  nobles  and  of  serfs.  When  Russia  was 
about  to  seize  the  territories  which  she  coveted,  Prussia  demanded 
a  share ;  and  to  prevent  the  opposition  of  the  other  great  neigh- 
bour, Austria  was  propitiated  with  another  share.  Maria  Theresa, 
personally,  was  opposed  to  the  scheme  ;  but  her  opposition  was 
not  of  that  nature  which  was  likely  to  interfere  with  its  completion. 
"  I  let  things  go  their  own  way,"  she  said,  "  but  not  without  the 
greatest  grief." 

The  indifference  of  the  English  government  to  what  was  consid 
ered  by  impartial  observers  "  as  the  first  very  great  breach  in  the 
modern  political  system  of  Europe,"  *  was  manifested  in  the  diplo- 
matic communications  of  our  court.  Mr.  Harris,  now  minister  at 
Berlin,  kept  lord  Suffolk  well-informed  of  the  negotiations  between 
Prussia  and  Russia.  The  Secretary  for  foreign  affairs  receives  the 
intelligence  very  coolly :  "  I  have  some  reason  to  apprehend  the 
terms  and  quantum  of  this  curious  transaction  are  not  positively  set- 
tled, though  there  is  no  doubt  of  the  general  plan  and  intention."f 
Again :  "  His  majesty  does  not  consider  the  affair  of  such  present 
importance  as  to  justify  acting  to  prevent  it."  J  Mr.  Murray,  am- 
bassador at  Constantinople,  who  had  given  some  advice  to  the 
Porte  on  the  subject,  received  a  very  severe  admonition  from  the 
British  government  not  to  meddle  with  matters  on  which  he  had 
no  instructions.  Lord  Rochford  calls  the  partition  of  Poland  an 

*  "  Annual  Register,"   1772,  p.  2. 

*  "Malraesbury  Diaries,"  &c.,  vol.  u  p.  70.  t  Ibid.,  p.  73. 


144  HISTORY   OF    ENGLAND. 

"  extraordinary  and  unexpected  event  i  "  but  says,  "  I  am  to  in- 
from  you  that,  although  such  a  change  suggests  not  improbable 
apprehensions  that  the  trade  of  Europe  may  hereafter  be  affected 
by  it,  neither  his  majesty  nor  the  other  commercial  powers  have 
thought  it  of  such  present  importance  as  to  make  a  direct  opposi- 
tion to  it."*  The  language  of  the  British  government  only  reflect- 
ed the  temper  of  the  country.  Burke  describes  this  apathy  :  "  We 
behold  the  destruction  of  a  great  kingdom,  with  the  consequent 
disarrangement  of  power,  dominion,  and  commerce,  with  as  total 
an  indifference  and  unconcern  as  we  would  read  an  account  of  the 
extermination  of  one  horde  of  Tartars  by  another,  in  the  days  of 
Gengis  Khan  and  Tamerlane."  \  Mr.  Harris,  writing  to  lord  Suf- 
folk in  1 774,  upon  the  completion  of  the  Partition  by  fresh  usurpa- 
tion of  territory,  indulges  a  hope  which  was  not  to  be  fulfilled : 
"  There  is  reason  to  believe  that  this  affair  once  settled,  that  unfortu- 
nate Republic,  after  an  uninterrupted  series  of  discord,  troubles,  and 
disgraces,  for  nearly  ten  years,  in  which  it  has  lost  its  liberty,  its 
finest  provinces,  and  all  its  consideration  in  the  affairs  of  Europe, 
will  be  left  quietly  to  reflect  on  its  misfortunes,  and  from  its  in- 
significance be  unmolested."  \  Twenty-one  years  afterwards, 
Kosciusko  fell ;  and  what  remained  of  Poland  was  divided  amongst 
the  first  spoliators. 

Intimately  connected  with  the  affairs  of  unhappy  Poland  was 
the  war  between  Turkey  and  Russia.  It  commenced  in  October, 
1768,  under  the  avowed  desire  of  the  sultan,  Mustapha  III.,  to 
save  Poland  from  the  calamity  of  Russian  interference  in  her 
domestic  troubles.  The  sultan,  however,  lies  under  the  charge  of 
having  proposed  a  partition  of  Poland  between  Turkey  and  Austria. 
The  war  was  a  serious  calamity  for  the  Porte.  Its  details  have 
become  more  interesting  for  us,  as  the  scenes  of  that  conflict 
present  us  with  the  names  so  familiar  in  1855.  The  war  was  for 
some  time  chiefly  between  the  Polish  confederates  and  their  allies 
the  Turks,  against  the  Russian  troops  in  Poland.  But  it  soon 
assumed  the  more  decisive  character  of  a  war  for  an  extension  of 
Russian  dominion.  The  generals  of  each  power,  in  the  judgment 
of  the  king  of  Prussia,  had  no  military  skill.  The  battles  were 
terrible  sacrifices  of  life,  without  intelligent  direction,  though  the 
Russians  had  more  pretension  to  tactics.  "  To  have  a  proper  no- 
tion of  the  contest,"  said  Frederick,  "  we  must  figure  to  ourselves 
a  party  of  one-eyed  people  thoroughly  beating  a  party  of  blind 
men."  Eventually  the  whole  country  between  the  Danube  and 

*  Appendix  to  Mahon,  vol.  v.  t  "Annual  Register,"  1772,  p.  2, 

t  "Diaries,7'  &c.,  vol.  i.  p.  99. 


ACQUISITIONS   OF    RUSSIA.  14.5 

the  Dnieper  fell  into  the  hands  of  the  Russians.  The  Crimea  was 
overrun  by  them.  They  became  masters  of  Kertsch,  Yenikale,  and 
Kaff  a.  The  Turkish  fleet  was  destroyed  in  the  bay  of  Chesme,  by 
a  Russian  squadron  which  had  sailed  from  Cronstadt  to  the  Med- 
iterranean. The  Russian  admiral  was  assisted  by  English  officers, 
every  indirect  aid  having  been  given  by  the  British  government  to 
Russia;  which  power,  wrote  lord  Rochford,  in  1772,  "his  majesty 
cannot  but  look  upon  as  the  natural  ally  of  his  crown,  and  with 
which  he  is  likely,  sooner  or  later,  to  be  closely  connected."  There 
was  an  armistice  after  the  Russian  fleet  returned  to  the  Baltic, 
having  been  very  efficiently  resisted  by  Gazi  Hassan,  an  adventurer 
who  raised  himself  by  his  genius  and  daring  to  be  capitan  pasha.* 
Peace  was  concluded  in  1774.  The  acquisitions  of  Russia  by  the 
peace  of  Kuchuk-Kainarji  may  be  thus  summed  up :  Russia  obtain- 
ed the  Great  and  the  Little  Kabarda,  the  fortresses  of  Azof,  Kil- 
barun,  Kertsch,  and  Yenikale ;  the  country  between  the  Bog  and 
the  Dnieper ;  the  free  navigation  of  the  Black  Sea,  and  a  free 
passage  through  the  Bosporus  and  the  Dardanelles  ;  the  co-protec- 
torship over  Moldavia  and  Wallachia  ;  and  the  protectorship  over 
all  the  Greek  churches  within  the  Turkish  empire.  The  Khanat 
of  the  Crimea  was  declared  independent,  but  it  soon  became  a  prey 
to  Russia. 

The  suppression  of  the  Jesuits,  in  1773,  "though  it  has  been  so 
long  expected,"  writes  Burke,  "  is  so  remarkable  an  event  that  it 
will  stamp  the  present  year  as  a  distinguished  era."  f  The  event 
was  expected,  because  the  abolition  of  the  society  by  Pope  Gan- 
ganelli,  Clement  XIV.,  was  a  final  measure  of  the  proscription 
which  had  been  carried  on  against  them,  for  some  years,  by  the 
Roman  Catholic  powers  of  Europe.  They  had  been  expelled  from 
Portugal,  in  1759,  with  many  odious  circumstances  of  severity. 
In  1764,  the  Society  was  suppressed  in  France,  and  their  property 
confiscated.  In  1767,  the  members  of  the  Order  were  driven  out 
of  Spain.  Clement  XIII.  strenuously  defended  the  Jesuits.  He 
believed  that  they  were  amongst  the  firmest  supporters  of  the 
papacy,  and  the  most  faithful  champions  of  religion.  He  would 
consent  to  no  change  in  their  constitution  ;  and  he  was  supported 
by  the  obstinacy  of  their  chief,  Lorenzo  Ricci.J  The  Bourbon 
courts  had  real  or  supposed  injuries  of  the  Jesuits  to  revenge. 
Madame  de  Pompadour,  it  is  said,  had  been  affronted  by  her  con- 
fessor, a  Jesuit,  who  exhorted  her  wholly  to  amend  her  life.  The 

*  The  sketch  of  this  remarkable  man  in  "  Anastasius  **  is  held  to  be  perfectly  accurate. 
—Note  by  Lord  Mahon,  vol.  v.  p.  473. 
t  "  Annual  Register,"  1773,  p.  3. 
t  Ranke — "  History  of  the  Popes,"  vol.  iii.  p.  309. 

VOL.  vi.— 10 


146  HISTORY   OF   ENGLAND. 

king  of  Spain  believed  that  they  were  plotting  to  put  his  brother 
upon  the  throne.  Clement  XIII.  died  in  1769.  His  successor 
had  been  raised  to  the  papal  throne  by  the  Bourbon  influence.  But 
he  was  a  man  of  liberal  and  moderate  opinions ;  and  he  saw  that 
the  institution  had  outlived  its  uses  as  an  instrument  of  papal 
supremacy,  and  was  out  of  harmony  with  the  prevailing  opinions 
of  his  time.  However  predisposed  against  the  Jesuits,  he  took 
sevehal  years  for  inquiry  and  counsel.  On  the  3ist  of  July,  1773, 
he  thus  pronounced  his  decision :  "  Inspired,  as  we  humbly  trust, 
by  the  Divine  Spirit,  urged  by  the  duty  of  restoring  the  unanimity 
of  the  Church,  convinced  that  the  Company  of  Jesus  can  no  longer 
render  those  services,  to  the  end  of  which  it  was  instituted,  and 
moved  by  other  reasons  of  prudence  and  state  policy  which  we 
hold  locked  in  our  own  breast,  we  abolish  and  annul  the  Society  of 
Jesus,  their  functions,  houses,  and  institutions."  When  Ganganelli 
said  "  the  Company  of  Jesus  can  no  longer  render  those  services 
to  the  end  of  which  it  was  instituted,"  he  expressed  a  truth  of  larger 
comprehension  than  their  services  to  the  papacy.  They  had,  in 
spite  of  their  political  intrigues,  rendered  essential  aid  to  the  pro- 
gress of  knowledge.  Their  missions  had  done  more  for  the  spread 
of  information  as  to  the  geography  of  distant  countries,  than  for 
the  conversation  of  the  peoples  amongst  whom  they  went.  Their 
success  as  educators  had  done  more  for  the  freedom  of  the  human 
mind  than  their  notions  of  papal  authority  for  its  enslavement. 
They  had  advanced  literature  and  science  amidst  their  incessant 
efforts  to  hold  society  in  thraldom.  They  had  waged  unceasing 
war  against  Protestantism,  and  during  that  conflict  the  prevailing 
thoughts  of  Europe  had  been  advancing,  and  had  left  them  behind. 
"  The  general  course  of  events,  the  development  of  modern  civili- 
zation, the  liberty  of  the  human  mind,  all  these  forces  against  which 
the  Jesuits  were  called  to  contest,  were  arrayed  against  them,  and 
conquered  them."  *  A  recent  writer  has  expressed  this  more 
tersely  :  "They  stood  in  the  way  of  the  age,  and  the  age  swept 
them  from  its  path."  f  The  same  acute  thinker  says  :  "  They 
were  the  last  defenders  of  authority  and  tradition  ;  and  it  was  nat- 
ural that  they  should  fall  in  an  age  when  statesmen  were  sceptics, 
and  theologians  were  Calvinists."  Johnson,  whilst  most  men 
exulted  in  their  destruction,  "  condemned  it  loudly  as  a  blow  to  the 
general  power  of  the  Church,  and  likely  to  be  followed  with  many 
dangerous  innovations,  which  might  at  length  become  fatal  to  relig 

*  Guizot — "  Civilisation  en  Europe  " — Douzieme  Leoon. 
t  Backle — "  Civilization  in  England,"  vol.  i.  p.  783. 


HOME   POLITICS,  147 

ion  itself."  *     He  was  addressing  a  French  abbd,  and  was  perhaps 
right  with  regard  to  France. 

There  are  subjects  of  home  politics  which  ought  to  be  fully 
treated  in  a  special  history  of  a  particular  era,  but  which  must  be 
slightly  noticed  in  a  work  embracing  the  whole  field  of  British  pro- 
gress. Thus,  in  the  year  1772,  when  Wilkes  was  contending  for 
the  shrievalty  of  London  instead  of  battling  with  a  House  of 
Commons  ;  when  the  country  was  no  longeV  agitated  with  Remon- 
strances and  Addresses  ;  when  Woodfall  was  reporting  the  debates 
of  Parliament  without  the  terror  of  the  serjeant-at-arms  before  his 
eyes, — there  were  interesting  discussions  in  both  Houses  on  peti- 
tions of  some  of  the  clergy  and  laity  that  Subscription  to  the  Thirty- 
Nine  Articles  might  not  be  enforced  at  the  Universities.  But  we 
cannot  enter  upon  any  detail  of  these  proceedings.  Nor  can  we  do 
more  than  notice  that  the  Dissenters  then  obtained  a  majority  in 
the  House  of  Commons  for  a  repeal  of  the  Test  Acts,  but  were 
defeated  in  the  Upper  House.  Time  gradually  matures  into 
practical  measures  the  theories,  sometimes  crude  and  undigested, 
by  which  social  reforms  are  advanced.  There  has  been,  since 
1772,  a  partial  concession  to  the  spirit  of  religious  liberty  on  the 
subject  of  Subscription.  The  repeal  of  the  Test  and  Corporation 
Acts  was  amongst  the  earliest  of  those  vast  improvements  which 
have  made  the  age  of  queen  Victoria  so  essentially  different  from 
the  age  of  George  IV.  The  constant  agitation  of  questions  like 
these  gradually  determines  public  opinion,  and  reforms  are  accom- 
plished without  violence  or  ill-will.  Thus,  in  March,'  1772,  Mr. 
Montague  moved  for  leave  to  bring  in  a  Bill  to  repeal  so  much  of 
the  Act  of  the  I2th  of  Charles  II.  as  directs  that  every  3oth  of 
January  should  be  for  ever  kept  as  a  day  of  fasting  and  humiliation. 
When  the  debates  were  very  meagrely  reported,  a  joke  was  some 
times  carefully  preserved  ;  and  we  learn  from  the  Parliamentary 
History  that  Mr.  Stephen  Fox  said  he  thought  the  ceremony  of 
the  day  did  no  harm,  unless, — addressing  the  Speaker, — "it  obliges 
you,  sir,  to  go  to  church  once  a  year."  In  1859,  tne  ^ast  °f  the 
3oth  of  January  passed  out  of  the  Calendar  by  Act  of  Parliament; 
and  the  form  of  prayer,  which  was  called  "  impious  "  in  the  debate 
of  1772,  has  vanished  from  our  Liturgy.  The  motion  was  rejected. 
The  strongest  prejudice  must,  however,  yield  at  last,  and  the  most 
prejudiced  know  that  time  will  settle  these  conflicts  of  principle. 
"  I  am  against  abolishing  the  fast  for  the  3oth  of  January,"  said 
Johnson.  "  But  I  should  have  no  objection  to  make  an  Act  con- 
tinuing it  for  another  century,  and  then  letting  it  expire. "f  The 

•  Mrs.  Piozzi's  "  Anecdotes."— Note  in  Boswell.  t  Boswell— March  21,  1772. 


148  HISTORY  OF    ENGLAND. 

time  he  had  contemplated  had  nearly  run  out  when  this  solemn 
mockery  could  no  longer  be  endured. 

Upon  a  question  of  political  economy,  the  Parliament  of  1772 
was  in  advance  of  public  opinion.  It  was  a  period  of  scarcity. 
The  price  of  wheat  was  35  per  cent,  above  the  average.  Harvests 
were  deficient  throughout  Europe.  Adam  Smith  represents  the 
feeling  of  his  time  in  saying — "  In  years  of  scarcity  the  inferior 
ranks  of  people  impute  their  distress  to  the  avarice  of  the  corn 
merchant."  The  statute  of  Edward  VI.  enacted,  that  whoever 
should  buy  any  corn  or  grain  with  intent  to  sell  it  again,  should  be 
reputed  an  unlawful  engrosser,  and  be  subject  to  various  penalties. 
The  statute  of  Charles  II.  permitted  the  engrossing  of  corn  when 
it  was  cheap,  but  the  buyer  was  not  to  sell  again  in  the  same 
market  within  three  months.  The  statute  of  1 772  "  For  repealing 
several  Laws  therein  mentioned  against  Badgers,  Engrossers, 
Forestallers,  and  Regrators,"  boldly  declares  that  these  laws  are 
"  detrimental  to  the  supply  of  the  labouring  and  manufacturing 
poor  of  this  kingdom."  The  preamble  to  the  statute  says,  that  "  it 
hath  been  found  by  experience  that  the  restraints  laid  by  several 
statutes  upon  dealing  in  corn,  meal,  flour,  cattle,  and  sundry  other 
sorts  of  victuals,  by  preventing  a  free  trade  in  the  said  commodities, 
have  a  tendency  to  discourage  the  growth  and  to  enhance  the  price 
of  the  same."  Nevertheless,  the  Common  Law  was  not  yet  ren- 
dered inoperative  by  public  enlightenment.  In  1800,  the  clamours 
against  corn  dealers  were  as  violent  as  in  the  days  of  the  Tudors  ; 
and  a  merchant  was  convicted,  before  lord  Kenyon,  for  regrating, 
that  is,  for  selling  thirty  quarters  of  oats  at  an  advanced  price  in 
the  same  market  on  the  same  day  on  which  he  had  bought  them. 

The  commencement  of  the  year  1772  brought  to  George  III. 
an  accumulation  of  family  anxieties.  On  the  29th  of  January,  a 
courier  arrived  from  Denmark  with  the  intelligence  that  the  queen 
of  Denmark,  sister  of  the  king  of  England,  had  been  sent  as  a 
prisoner  to  the  castle  of  Kronberg.  Caroline  Matilda,  the  youngest 
of  the  numerous  family  of  Frederick,  prince  of  Wales,  was  born  in 
1751  ;  and  was  married  in  1766,  to  Christian  VII.,  king  of  Den- 
mark. She  is  described  as  very  beautiful ;  of  a  sweet  nature  ;  one 
whose  life  would  have  been  happy  had  she  been  united  to  a  worthy 
husband.  The  king  of  Denmark  was  as  debased  in  morals  as  he 
was  low  in  intellect — a  spiritless  wretch,  who  had  given  up  all  care 
of  his  subjects  to  his  favourite,  Struensee.  Verging  towards  idiocy, 
the  king  left  his  consort  to  transact  state  affairs  in  council  with 
Struensee.  The  minister  was  rash  and  presumptuous  ;  and  pro- 
voked the  hostility  of  a  strong  party  of  the  court,  who  were  led  by 


THE    ROYAL   MARRIAGE   ACT.  149 

the  dowager-queen,  Juliana  Maria,  the  step-mother  of  Christian 
VII.  A  formidable  conspiracy  was  organized  against  Struensee  ; 
and  Caroline  Matilda  was  destined  to  be  the  victim  with  him,  upon 
an  accusation  against  her  of  conjugal  infidelity.  She  had  borne 
the  king  a  son  and  a  daughter,  and  had  been  recently  confined  with 
a  second  daughter.  At  midnight  the  king's  chamber  was  suddenly 
entered  ;  and  he  was  required  to  sign  an  order  for  the  arrest  of  his 
queen,  of  Struensee,  and  of  his  colleague  in  the  ministry,  Brandt. 
The  king  was  told  that  they  had  entered  into  a  plot  to  depose  him  ; 
and  in  terror  for  his  own  personal  safety,  he  hesitated  not  to  resign 
his  queen  and  his  ministers  into  the  hands  of  their  enemies.  Caro- 
line Matilda  was  dragged  from  her  chamber,  refused  access  to  her 
husband,  and  with  her  infant  carried  off  to  the  castle  of  Kronberg. 

7  O 

Struensee  and  Brandt  were  beheaded,  after  a  pretended  trial. 
Proceedings  against  the  queen  were  suspended  by  the  interposi- 
tion of  the  government  of  George  III. ;  and,  after  a  captivity  of 
four  months,  she  was  received  on  board  a  British  man-of-war,  but 
was  not  permitted  to  take  her  child  with  her.  In  the  castle  of 
Zell,  in  Hanover,  she  passed  the  remaining  three  years  of  her  un- 
happy life.  There  is  a  record  of  M.  Roques,  the  pastor  of  the 
French  Protestant  church  at  Zell,  who  was  frequently  consulted  by 
the  queen  on  the  distribution  of  her  charities,  that  on  her  death- 
bed she  made  a  solemn  declaration  that  she  had  never  been  un- 
faithful to  her  husband. 

When  this  distressing  news  arrived  in  England,  the  mother  of 
George  III.  was  dangerously  ill.  The  king,  as  Walpole  relates, 
was  advised  to  conceal  this  new  misfortune  from  the  Princess 
Dowager  ;  but  he  replied,  "  My  mother  will  know  everything,  and 
therefore  it  is  better  that  I  should  break  it  to  her  by  degrees."* 
On  the  8th  of  February  the  king  wrote  this  short  note  to  lord 
North  :  "  My  mother  is  no  more."  Of  the  five  sons  of  the  princess 
of  Wales,  two  had  died — Edward,  duke  of  York,  and  Frederick, 
the  youngest  son.  William,  duke  of  Gloucester,  and  Henry,  duke 
of  Cumberland,  were  at  this  time  under  the  serious  displeasure  of 
their  brother  the  king. 

The  Marriage-Act  of  1753  especially  excepted  members  of  the 
royal  family  from  its  operation.  George  1 1.  is  represented  to  have 
said,  "  I  will  not  have  my  family  laid  under  these  restraints."  In 
1771,  the  duke  of  Cumberland,  then  in  his  twenty-sixth  year,  be- 
came deeply  enamoured  of  Mrs.  Horton,  the  daughter  of  an  Irish 
peer,  Simon  Luttrell,  lord  Irnham.  The  duke  had  been  previously 
notorious  for  his  intrigues ;  and  a  jury  had  awarded  damages  of 

*  "  Last  Journals  of  Horace  Walpole,"  edited  by  Dr.  Doran,  vol.  i.  p.  4. 


150  HISTORY   OF    ENGLAND. 

ten  thousand  pounds  against  him  in  an  action  for  criminal  conver- 
sation brought  by  lord  Grosvenor.  The  letters  of  this  very  silly 
prince  of  the  blood,  produced  on  this  occasion,  were  the  public 
scorn.  In  October,  1771,  the  duke  of  Cumberland  induced  Mrs. 
Horton  to  accompany  him  to  Calais,  where  they  were  married  ac- 
cording to  the  forms  of  the  English  Church.  The  pair  were  for- 
bidden the  Court.  What  was  the  mortification  of  the  king,  what 
was  the  triumph  of  Wilkes,  exclaims  Walpole,  "  when  it  was  known 
that  this  new  princess  of  the  blood  was  own  sister  of  the  famous 
colonel  Luttrell,  the  tool  thrust  by  the  Court  into  Wilkes's  seat  for 
Middlesex?"*  The  duke  of  Gloucester,  in  September,  1766 — he 
then  being  in  his  twenty-third  year — had  married  the  widow  of  the 
earl  of  Waldegrave.  This  lady  was  a  natural  daughter  of  sir  Ed- 
ward Walpole ;  and  as  the  wife  of  the  nobleman  who  had  been 
governor  to  prince  George,  had  been  distinguished  for  her  exem- 
plary character.  Walpole  says,  "  The  duke  of  Cumberland's  mar- 
riage was  a  heavy  blow  on  lady  Waldegrave,  and  seemed  to  cut  off 
all  hopes  of  the  king's  permitting  the  duke  of  Gloucester  to  ac- 
knowledge her  for  his  wife."  f  The  duke  of  Gloucester's  marriage 
was  kept  secret. 

On  the  aoth  of  February  the  following  royal  message  was 
brought  down  to  both  Houses  of  Parliament:  "George  R.  His 
Majesty  being  desirous,  from  paternal  affection  for  his  own  family, 
and  anxious  concern  for  the  future  welfare  of  his  people,  and  the 
honour  and  dignity  of  his  crown,  that  the  right  of  approving  all 
marriages  in  the  royal  family  (which  ever  has  belonged  to  the  kings 
of  this  realm  as  a  matter  of  public  concern)  may  be  made  effectual, 
recommends  to  both  Houses  of  Parliament  to  take  into  their  seri- 
ous consideration  whether  it  may  not  be  wise  and  expedient  to 
supply  the  defect  of  the  laws  now  in  being;  and,  by  some  new  pro- 
vision, more  effectually  to  guard  the  descendants  of  his  late  majesty 
king  George  the  second  (other  than  the  issue  of  princesses  who 
have  married  or  may  hereafter  marry  into  foreign  families)  from 
marrying  without  the  approbation  of  his  majesty,  his  heirs,  or  suc- 
cessors, first  had  and  obtained."  The  royal  Marriage  Bill  was 
presented  next  day  to  the  House  of  Lords.  It  made  provision 
that  no  Prince  or  Princess,  descended  from  George  II. — with  the 
exception  of  the  issue  of  Princesses  married  abroad — should  be 
capable  of  contracting  matrimony  without  the  previous  consent 
of  the  king,  his  heirs,  or  successors.  But  it  also  provided  that  if 
any  such  descendant  of  George  II.,  being  above  the  age  of  twenty- 
five,  should  persist  in  a  resolution  to  marry,  the  king's  consent 

*  "  Memoirs  of  George  III.,"  vol.  iv.  p.  356.  t  Ibid.    p.  360. 


THE   ROYAL    MARRIAGE   ACT.  151 

being  refused,  he  or  she  might  give  notice  to  the  Privy  Council, 
and  might  at  any  time  within  twelve  months  after  such  notice  con- 
tract marriage,  unless  both  Houses  of  Parliament,  before  the  ex- 
piration of  twelve  months,  should  expressly  declare  their  disap- 
probation of  such  intended  marriage.  After  continued  and  vehe- 
ment debates  in  both  Houses,  the  Bill  became  law ;  and  it  still 
continues  in  force.  Its  provisions  appear  to  be  imperfectly  under- 
stood. It  is  called  "  an  encroachment  upon  the  law  of  nature  " — 
"  an  impious  and  cruel  measure."*  There  is  a  constitutional 
appeal  against  an  unjust  exercise  of  the  prerogative.  Such  an  ap- 
peal has  never  been  made ;  but  it  would  most  probably  not  be 
made  in  vain,  if  any  case  should  arise  which  would  justify  Parlia- 
ment in  not  supporting  the  sovereign  in  the  assertion  of  an  arbi- 
trary power.  However  we  may  deplore  the  alleged  necessity  of 
excepting  the  highest  in  the  land  from  the  enjoyment  of  that  indi- 
.vidual  liberty  which  belongs  to  the  meanest  subject,  we  cannot 
help  repeating  a  question  very  pertinently  asked,  "  What  turn 
would  English  history  have  taken  if  this  Act  had  never  been 
passed  ?  "  f  During  the  progress  of  the  Bill,  the  duke  of  Glouces- 
ter's marriage  was  avowed.  There  is  a  very  interesting  letter  of 
the  duchess  of  Gloucester  to  her  father,  sir  Edward  Walpole, 
dated  the  iQth  of  May  ;  the  last  debate  on  the  marriage  Act  having 
been  on  the  24th  of  March.  The  following  is  an  extract : — "  When 
the  duke  of  Gloucester  married  me  (which  was  in  September,  1 766) 
I  promised  him  upon  no  consideration  in  the  world  to  own  it  even 
to  you  without  his  permission ;  which  permission  I  never  had  till 
yesterday,  when  he  arrived  here  in  much  better  health  and  looks 
than  ever  I  saw  him ;  yet,  as  you  may  suppose,  much  hurt  at  all 
that  has  passed  in  his  absence  :  so  much  so,  that  I  have  had  great 
difficulty  to  prevail  upon  him  to  let  things  as  much  as  possible  re- 
main as  they  are.  To  secure  my  character,  without  injuring  his, 
is  the  utmost  of  my  wishes ;  and  I  dare  say  that  you  and  all  my 
relations  will  agree  with  me  that  I  shall  be  much  happier  to  be 
called  lady  Waldegrave,  and  respected  as  duchess  of  Gloucester, 
than  to  feel  myself  the  cause  of  his  leading  such  a  life  as  his  brother 

does,  in  order  for  me  to  be  called  your  Royal  Highness 

If  ever  I  am  unfortunate  enough  to  be  called  duchess  of  Glouces- 
ter, there  is  an  end  of  almost  all  the  comforts  which  I  now  enjoy, 
which,  if  things  can  go  on  as  they  are  now,  are  many."  J  The  do- 
mestic miseries  of  one  generation  are,  happily,  frequently  put  an 
end  to  in  another  generation.  The  son  of  William,  duke  of  Glou- 

*  Massey — "  George  III.,"  vol.  ii.  p.  145.       t  "  Quarterly  Review,"  vol.  cv.  p.  470. 
t  "  Last  Journals  of  H.  Walpole,"  p.  iso. 


152  HISTORY   OF   ENGLAND. 

cester,  the  brother  of  George  III.,  married  the  princess  Mary,  the 
daughter  of  George  III.  * 

In  1773,  the  Parliament  turned  from  its  long  course  of  anti-pop- 
ular contests,  to  look  seriously  at  a  matter  of  paramount  national 
importance.  The  pecuniary  affairs  of  the  East  India  Company 
had  fallen  into  great  disorder.  On  the  2nd  of  March  a  petition 
was  presented  from  the  Company  to  the  House  of  Commons,  pray- 
ing for  the  assistance  of  a  loan  of  a  million  and  a  half  sterling.  In 
the  previous  session  a  Select  Committee  of  tlie  House  had  been  ap- 
pointed to-inquire  into  the  affairs  of  the  Company.  The  necessity 
for  such  an  inquiry  was  strongly  urged,  upon  financial  and  moral 
grounds.  The  net  revenues  of  Bengal  had  decreased  ;  the  natives 
were  distressed  and  discontented ;  the  Company's  servants  were 
arbitrary  and  oppressive.  General  Burgoyne,  the  mover  of  the 
Resolution  for  a  Committee,  made  an  eloquent  appeal  to  the  feel- 
ings of  the  House  :  "  The  fate  of  a  grea.t  portion  of  the  globe  ;  the 
fate  of  great  states  in  which  your  own  is  involved  ;  the  distresses 
of  fifteen  millions  of  people  ;  the  rights  of  humanity  ;  are  involved 
in  this  question."  To  understand  the  necessity  for  such  an  in- 
quiry, we  must  take  a  rapid  glance  at  the  affairs  of  India,  from 
the  period  when  the  French  supremacy  was  utterly  destroyed  by 
the  energies  of  Clive.f 

In  1760,  when  the  strong  hand  that  had  made  the  English  mas- 
ters of  Bengal  was  withdrawn,  the  agents  of  the  Compnay,  regard- 
ing their  own  enrichment  as  the  immediate  business  of  their  lives, 
and  permitting  their  native  factors  to  pursue  a  similar  course  of 
extortion,  Meer  Cossein,  for  whose  elevation  they  had  removed  the 
Subahdar  whom  Clive  had  raised  to  power,  dispkyed  an  inclina- 
tion to  be  freed  from  his  English  friends.  The  differences  at  last 
came  to  an  open  rupture,  and  Meer  Cossein's  troops  murdered  the 
members  of  a  deputation  sent  from  Calcutta  to  negotiate  with  him. 
In  1763  war  was  commenced,  for  the  purpose  of  deposing  Meer 
Cossein  and  restoring  Meer  Jaffier.  The  Subahdar  was  finally 
overthrown,  but  not  before  he  had  taken  a  horrible  vengeance  upon 
the  English,  by  murdering  a  hundred  and  fifty  prisoners  in  the  for- 
tress of  Patna.  The  tyrant  fled  to  the  Nabob  of  Oucle.  Their 
joint  forces  were  subsequently  defeated  by  the  English  under  ma- 

*  "  On  the  death  of  the  late  duke  of  Sussex,  the  fifth  son  of  king  George  III.,  who 
had  been  married  at  Rome  in  1792,  by  a  minister  of  the  Church  of  England,  and  shortly 
afterwards  again  in  England,  according  to  the  rites  of  the  Church  of  England,  it  was  held 
that  his  peerage  did  not  pass  to  the  only  son  of  that  marriage,  Sir  Aujuitus  D'  Este  ;  but 
that  the  statute  extended  to  prohibit  contracts  for,  and  to  annul,  any  marriage  in  violation 
of  its  provisions,  wherever  the  same  might  be  contracted  or  solemnized." — (Blackstone' s 
Commentaries — Kerr's  edit.,  vol.  i.  p.  215.) 
t  Ante.  p.  31. 


RETROSPECT   OF    INDIAN    AFFAIRS.  153 

jor  Munro.  Shah  Alum,  the  Great  Mogul,  who  had  been  driven 
from  his  capital  of  Delhi  by  the  Mahrattas,  now  sought  the  British 
protection.  But  in  spite  of  victories,  the  rule  of  the  stranger  was 
one  of  oppression  for  the  Bengalees ;  and  the  undoubted  misgov- 
ernment  of  this  period  justified  general  Burgoyne,  to  call  upon  the 
Parliament  to  redress  their  wrongs :  "  Good  God  !  what  a  call ! 
the  native  of  Hindustan,  born  a  slave  ;  his  neck  bent  from  the  very 
cradle  to  the  yoke ;  by  birth,  by  education,  by  climate,  by  religion, 
a  patient,  submissive,  willing  subject  to  Eastern  despotism,  first  be- 
gins to  feel,  first  shakes  his  chains,  for  the  first  time  complains, 
under  the  pre-eminence  of  British  tyranny." 

The  misrule  of  the  Company's  servants  in  India  was  unchecked 
by  an  united  central  authority  in  England.  The  king's  govern- 
ment had  as  yet  no  efficient  control  over  Indian  affairs.  The  Di- 
rectors were  quarrelling  amongst  themselves,  and  divided  into  knots 
contending  for  supremacy.  To  establish  a  just  rule  over  the  vast 
empire  that  was  subject  to  their  power  and  influence  formed  a 
small  portion  of  their  deliberations.  In  India  there  was  no  su- 
preme authority;  and  the  three  presidencies  had  rival  interests  to 
uphold.  The  whole  dominion  of  the  English  would  have  probably 
gone  to  ruin,  if  Clive  had  not  procured  an  ascendancy  in  the  Court 
of  Directors,  and  once  more  sailed  for  Calcutta  with  extensive 
powers,  as  Governor  and  Commander-in-chief  of  Bengal.  His  very 
name  soon  operated  upon  the  native  princes.  His  judicious  meas- 
ures set  some  bounds  to  the  rapacity  of  the  Company's  servants.  He 
made  them  give  pledges  to  accept  no  future  presents  from  natives. 
He  debarred  high  officers  from  carrying  on  private  trade.  He  de- 
prived military  officers  of  that  extra  allowance  in  the  field  known 
as  "double  batta."  For  himself,  he  now  cautiously  abstained  from 
adding  anything  to  his  large  fortune  by  accepting  such  gratuities  as 
he  had  received  in  the  early  portion  of  his  career.  He  returned  to 
England  in  the  beginning  of  1767,  having  laid  the  foundation  of 
that  better  government  which  eventually  made  the  British  domin- 
ion a  blessing  instead  of  a  curse  to  India.  His  biographer  has 
said,  "  From  Clive's  second  visit  to  India  dates  the  political  ascen- 
dancy of  the  English  in  that  country From  Clive's  third 

visit  to  India  dates  the  purity  of  the  administration  of  our  Eastern 
Empire."* 

The  successes  of  the  Company  in  Bengal  were  now  to  be 
counterbalanced  by  defeats  in  Madras.  Hyder  Ali,  a  man  of  abil- 
ity and  daring,  who  had  deposed  the  rajah  of  Mysore  in  1761, 
was  extending  his  dominions  by  conquests  and  seizures  ;  and  was 
securing  his  ascendancy  by  an  energy  which  formed  a  striking  con- 

*  Macaulay — "  Essays." 


154  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

trast  to  the  supineness  of  the  greater  number  of  native  princes. 
He  became  engaged  in  a  contest  with  the  English ;  and  by  his  rap- 
id movements,  and  his  sudden  attacks,  was  a  most  formidable  ene- 
my by  land  and  sea.  Having  plundered  and  wasted  the  Ca/natic, 
he  appeared  with  five  thousand  horsemen  before  Madras,  in  1769; 
and  there  concluded  a  treaty  with  the  terrified  Council,  in  the  ab- 
sence of  their  troops.  The  terms  of  the  alliance  which  was  then 
concluded  were  not  onerous.  Their  moderation  evinced  the  sa- 
gacity of  this  extraordinary  ruler. 

An  arrangement  was,  in  1 769,  made  between  the  Administra- 
tion and  the  East  Indian  Directors.  The  Company  were  to  hold 
the  territorial  revenues  of  India  for  five  years,  they  paying  ^400,- 
ooo  annually  into  the  Exchequer.  But  in  1770  the  resources  of 
India  materially  failed.  There  was  a  terrible  famine  in  Bengal, 
in  which  it  is  supposed  that  one-third  of  the  inhabitants  perished. 
In  1772,  the  Company  declared  a  deficiency  of  above  a  million; 
obtained  loans  from  the  Bank  of  England  to  a  large  amount ;  and 
at  last  went  to  Parliament  for  aid,  with  the  undoubted  risk  of  pro- 
voking a  more  stringent  inquiry  into  their  affairs  than  had  ever 
before  been  instituted.  In  1773,  an  Act  was  passed,  by  which 
^1,400,000  was  lent  to  the  Company ;  the  payment  of  ,£400,000  per 
annum  was  postponed ;  and  the  dividend  of  the  proprietors  was 
restricted  to  6  per  cent.,  until  the  loan  should  be  repaid.  By  an- 
other Act  the  annual  elections  of  directors  were  to  be  subject  to 
regulations,  such  as  prevailed  till  the  very  recent  changes.  A  Gov- 
ernor-General was  to  reside  in  Bengal,  to  which  presidency  the 
other  two  were  made  subordinate.  The  first  Governor-General, 
Warren  Hastings,  was  named  in  this  Act,  as  were  the  new  Coun- 
cil. The  appointments  of  Parliament  were  to  continue  for  five 
years,  and  then  the  nomination  was  to  revert  to  the  Court  of  Direc- 
tors, subject  to  the  approbation  of  the  Crown.  One  of  the  new 
council  was  Philip  Francis  ;  and  this  appointment  has  given  birth 
to  the  theory  that  Junius  ceased  to  write  when  he  was  propitiated 
by  sor  great  a  bounty  upon  his  silence. 

The  transactions  of  the  government  with  the  East  India  Com- 
pany were  completed  by  what  was  meant  as  a  concession  to  the 
Directors.  They  had  in  their  warehouses  seventeen  million 
pounds  of  tea,  for  which  they  wanted  a  market.  Permission  was 
given  by  Act  of  Parliament  to  export  teas  belonging  to  the  Com- 
pany to  any  of  the  British  plantations  in  America,  with  a  drawback 
of  the  duty  payable  in  England.  The  colonial  tax  of  three  pence 
in  the  pound  was  to  be  paid  in  the  American  ports.  Ships  were 
freighted,  and  consignees  appointed  to  sell  their  cargoes.  Fatal 
boon,  whose  consequences  no  one  saw. 


DESTRUCTION    OF   TEA    IN    BOSTON    HARBOUR.  155 


CHAPTER   IX. 

Destruction  of  Tea  in  Boston  Harbour. — Franklin  before  the  Council. — Boston  Port 
Bill. — Burke's  speech  against  taxing  America. — Chatham's  speech. — Sentiments  of 
the  Americans. — State  of  Parties  in  America — Leaders  of  the  House  of  Commons. — 
Reception  of  the  Boston  Port  Bill. — Military  preparations. — Chatham's  and  Burke's 
efforts  for  conciliation. — Rapid  growth  of  America. — English  feelings  on  the  Amer- 
ican question. — Hostilities  commenced  at  Lexington. — Ticonderoga  and  Crown  Point 
taken. — Washington's  view  of  civil  war. — Principles  involved  in  the  struggle. 

IT  was  Sunday,  the  28th  of  November,  1773,  when  there  sailed 
into  Boston  harbour  the  English  merchant  ship  Dartmouth,  laden 
with  chests  of  tea  belonging  to  the  East  India  Company.  The  Act 
of  Parliament  which  allowed  the  Treasury  to  license  vessels  to 
export  the  teas  of  the  Company  to  the  American  colonies,  free  of 
duty,  was  the  signal  for  popular  gatherings  in  Boston.  Samuel 
Adams,  in  the  "  Boston  Gazette,"  roused  again  that  feeling  of 
resistance  which  had  partially  subsided.  The  governor  of  Massa- 
chusetts, in  October,  wrote  to  lord  Dartmouth,  who  had  succeeded 
lord  Hillsborough  as  colonial  secretary,  that  Samuel  Adams,  "  who 
was  the  first  person  that  openly,  and  in  any  public  assembly,  de- 
clared for  a  total  independence,"  had  "  obtained  such  an  ascend- 
ancy as  to  direct  the  town  of  Boston  and  the  House  of  Represen- 
tatives, and  consequently  the  Council,  just  as  he  pleases."  The 
East  India  Company  had  appointed  its  consignees  in  Boston.  On 
the  night  of  the  2nd  of  November,  summonses  were  left  at  the 
houses  of  each  of  these  persons,  requiring  them  to  appear  on  a 
certain  day  at  Liberty  Tree,  to  resign  their  commission ;  and 
notices  were  issued  desiring  the  freemen  of  Boston  and  of  the 
neighbouring  towns  to  assemble  at  the  same  place.  The  con- 
signees did  not  appear  ;  but  a  Committee  of  the  Assembly  traced 
them  to  a  warehouse,  where  they  were  met  to  consult.  They  were 
required  not  to  sell  the  teas,  but  to  return  them  to  London  by  the 
vessels  which  might  bring  them.  They  refused  to  comply,  and 
were  denounced  as  enemies  to  their  country.  Philadelphia  had 
previously  compelled  the  agents  of  the  Company  to  resign  their 
appointments.  Town  meetings  were  held  at  Boston,  when  strong 
resolutions  were  adopted.  In  this  state  of  things,  on  that  Sunday, 
the  28th  of  November,  the  first  tea-ship  arrived.  The  New  Eng- 
land colonists  preserved  that  strict  observance  of  the  Sabbath 


156  HISTORY 'OF    ENGLAND. 

which  their  puritan  fathers  felt  the  highest  of  duties.  But  it  was  a 
work  of  necessity  to  impede  the  landing  of  the  tea;  and  a  Com' 
mittee  met  twice  on  that  Sunday  to  concert  measures.  They 
obtained  a  promise  from  Rotch,  the  commander  of  the  ship  Dart- 
mouth, that  his  vessel  should  not  be  entered  till  the  following 
Tuesday.  On  Monday,  the  Committee  of  all  the  neighbouring 
town  assembled  at  Boston ;  and  five  thousand  persons  agreed  that 
the  tea  should  be  sent  back  to  the  place  whence  it  came.  "  Throw 
it  overboard,"  cried  one.  The  consignees,  alarmed  at  this  demon- 
stration, declared  that  they  would  not  send  back  the  teas,  but  that 
they  would  store  them.  This  proposal  was  received  with  scorn  ; 
and  then  the  consignees  agreed  that  the  teas  should  not  be  landed. 
But  there  was  a  legal  difficulty.  If  the  rest  of  the  cargo  were 
landed,  and  the  tea  not  landed,  the  vessel  could  not  be  cleared  in 
Boston,  and  after  twenty  days  was  liable  to  seizure.  Two  more 
ships  arrived,  and  anchored  by  the  side  of  the  Dartmouth.  The 
people  kept  watch  night  and  day  to  prevent  any  attempt  at  landing 
the  teas.  Thirteen  days-  after  the  arrival  of  the  Dartmouth,  the 
owner  was  summoned  before  the  Boston  Committee,  and  told  that 
his  vessel  and  his  tea  must  be  taken  back  to  London.  It  was  out 
of  his  power  to  do  so,  he  said.  He  certainly  had  not  the  power; 
for  the  passages  out  of  the  harbour  were  guarded  by  two  king's 
ships,  to  prevent  any  vessel  going  to  sea  without  a  license.  On 
the  1 6th,  the  revenue  officers  would  have  a  legal  authority  to  take 
possession  of  the  Dartmouth.  For  three  days  previous  there  had 
been  meetings  of  the  Boston  Committee  ;  but  their  journal  had 
only  this  entry — "  No  business  transacted  matter  of  record." 

On  the  1 6th  of  December,  there  was  a  meeting  in  Boston  of 
seven  thousand  persons,  who  resolved  that  the  tea  should  not  be 
landed.  The  master  of  the  Dartmouth  was  ordered  to  apply  to  the 
governor  for  a  pass,  for  his  vessel  to  proceed  on  her  return  voyage 
to  London.  The  governor  was  at  his  country  house.  Many  of  the 
leaders  had  adjourned  to  a  church,  to  wait  his  answer.  The  night 
had  come  on  when  Rotch  returned,  and  announced  that  the  gover- 
nor had  refused  him  a  pass,  because  his  ship  had  not  cleared. 
There  was  no  more  hesitation.  Forty  or  fifty  men,  disguised  as 
Mohawks,  raised  the  war-whoop  at  the  porch  of  the  church  ;  went  on 
to  the  wharf  where  the  three  ships  lay  alongside  ;  took  possession 
of  them  ;  and  deliberately  emptied  three  hundred  and  forty  chests 
of  tea  into  the  waters  of  the  bay.  It  was  the  work  of  three  hours. 
Not  a  sound  was  heard,  but  that  of  breaking  open  the  chests.  The 
people  of  Boston  went  to  their  rest,  as  if  no  extraordinary  event 
had  occurred. 


FRANKLIN    BEFORE    THE    COUNCIL.  157 

On  the  27th  of  January,  1774,  the  news  of  this  decisive  act 
reached  the  English  government.  On  the  2Qth' there  was  a  great 
meeting  of  the  Lords  of  the  council,  to  consider  a  petition  from 
Massachusetts,  for  the  dismissal  of  Hutchinson,  the  governor,  and 
Oliver,  the  lieutenant-governor.  Dr.  Franklin  appeared  before  the 
Council  as  agent  for  Massachusetts.  He  had  rendered  himself 
obnoxious  to  the  English  government  by  a  proceeding  which  even 
his  patriotism  could  not  wholly  justify.  He  had  obtained  posses- 
sion of  some  private  letters  written  confidentially  several  years 
before,  in  which  Hutchinson  and  Oliver  avowed  sentiments  opposed 
to  what  they  considered  the  licentiousness  of  the  Colonists.  These 
letters  Franklin  transmitted  to  the  Assembly  at  Boston,  who  voted, 
by  a  large  majority,  that  the  opinions  expressed  contemplated  the 
establishment  of  arbitrary  power;  and  they  accordingly  petitioned 
for  the  removal  of  the  governor  and  lieutenant-governor.  The 
intelligence  from  Boston  of  the  destruction  of  the  teas  was  not 
likely  to  propitiate  the  Council.  Franklin  was  treated  with  little 
respect ;  and  Wedderburn,  the  solicitor-general,  assailed  him  with 
a  torrent  of  invective,  at  which  the  lords  cheered  and  laughed. 
Franklin  bore  the  assaults  with  perfect  equanimity  ;  but  from  that 
hour  he  ceased  to  be  a  mediator  between  Great  Britain  and  the 
Colonists.  The  Council  reported  that  the  Petition  from  Massa- 
chusetts was  "  groundless,  vexatious,  and  scandalous."  Two  days 
after,  Franklin  was  dismissed  from  his  office  of  Deputy  Postmaster 
General.  He  said  to  Priestley,  who  was  present  at  the  Council, 
that  he  considered  the  thing  for  which  he  had  been  so  insulted,  as 
one  of  the  best  actions  of  his  life. 

The  Parliament  had  met  on  the  i3th  of  January.  It  was  the  7th 
of  March  when  lord  North  delivered  the  king's  message  relating  to 
<!  the  violent  and  outrageous  proceedings  at  the  town  and  port  of 
Boston,  in  the  province  of  Massachusetts  Bay,  with  a  view  to  obstruct- 
ing the  commerce  of  this  kingdom,  and  upon  grounds  and  pretences 
immediately  subversive  of  the  constitution  thereof."  There  was 
a  debate,  of  which  the  most  remarkable  part  was,  that  when  lord 
North  stated  that  the  proper  papers  should  be  ready  on  the  follow- 
ing Friday,  Thurlow,  the  attorney-general,  said,  loud  enough  to 
reach  the  ear  of  the  minister,  "  I  never  heard  anything  so  impudent; 
he  has  no  plan  yet  ready."  *  The  one  plan  which  first  presented 
itself — the  most  unfortunate  of  all  plans — is  exhibited  in  a  note  of 
the  king  to  lord  North,  dated  the  4th  of  February  :  "  Gen.  Gage, 
though  just  returned  from  Boston,  expresses  his  willingness  to  go 
back  at  a  day's  notice  if  convenient  measures  are  adopted.  He  says, 
*  Walpole — "  La^t  Journals,"  voU  i.  p»  329. 


158  HISTORY   OF    ENGLAND. 

They  will  be  lions  while  we  are  lambs;  but  if  we  take  the  resolute 
part,  they  will  undoubtedly  prove  very  meek.  Four  regiments,  sent 
to  Boston,  will,  he  thinks,  be  sufficient  to  prevent  any  disturbance. 
All  men  now  feel  that  the  fatal  compliance  in  1766  has  increased 
the  pretensions  of  the  Americans  to  thorough  independence."  On 
the  I4th  of  March,  lord  North  brought  in  a  Bill  for  removing  the 
Custom  House  from  Boston,  and  declaring  it  unlawful,  after  the 
1st  of  June,  to  lade  or  unlade,  ship  or  unship,  any  goods  from  any 
landing-place  within  the  harbour  of  Boston.  There  was  little  op- 
position to  this  measure,  which  was  passed  in  a  fortnight,  and  when 
sent  to  the  Lords  was  as  quickly  adopted.  Chatham  suggested,  in 
a  letter  to  Shelburne,  that  reparation  ought  first  to  be  demanded 
and  refused  before  such  a  bill  could  be  called  just.  The  letter  of 
Chatham,  in  which  he  makes  this  suggestion,  is  that  of  a  great 
statesman,  exhibiting  the  sound  qualities  of  his  mind  perhaps  even 
more  clearly  than  his  impassioned  oratory :  "  The  whole  of  this 
unhappy  business  is  beset  with  dangers  of  the  most  complicated 
and  lasting  nature  ;  and  the  point  of  true  wisdom  for  the  mother- 
country  seems  to  be  in  such  nice  and  exact  limits  (accurately  dis- 
tinguished, and  embraced,  with  a  large  and  generous  moderation  of 
spirit),  as  narrow,  short-sighted  counsels  of  state,  or  over-heated 
popular  debates,  are  not  likely  to  hit.  Perhaps  a  fatal  desire  to  take 
advantage  of  this  guilty  tumult  of  the  Bostonians,  in  order  to  crush 
the  spirit  of  liberty  among  the  Americans  in  general,  has  taken 
possession  of  the  heart  of  government."  * 

In  the  "  heart  of  government  "  there  was  no  place  for  concilia- 
tion. The  Boston  Port  Bill,  backed  up  by  military  force,  was  to 
be  followed  by  other  measures  of  coercion.  On  the  28th  of  March, 
lord  1  lorth  brought  in  a  Bill  for  regulating  the  government  of 
Massachusetts  Bav.  "  I  propose,"  he  said,  "  In  this  Bill  to  take 
the  executive  power  from  the  hands  of  the  democratic  part  of  gov- 
ernment." The  proposition  went,  in  many  important  particulars, 
to  annul  the  Charter  granted  to  the  province  by  William  III.  The 
council  was  to  be  appointed  by  the  Crown ;  the  magistrates  were 
to  be  nominated  by  the  governor.  This  Bill  also  passed,  after  in- 
effectual debate.  A  third  Bill  enacted,  that  during  the  next  three 
years,  the  Governor  of  Massachusetts  might,  if  it  was  thought  that 
an  impartial  trial  of  any  person  could  not  be  secured  in  that  col- 
ony, send  him  for  trial  in  another  colony  ;  or  to  Great  Britain,  if  it 
were  thought  that  no  fair  trial  could  be  obtained  in  the  Colonies. 
The  object  of  the  Bill  was  distinctly  stated  by  lord  North—"  Un- 
less such  a  bill  should  pass  into  a  law  the  executive  power  will  be 

*  "  Chatham  Correspondence,"  vol.  vi.  p.  337. 


BURKET5   SPEECH   AGAINST   TAXING   AMERICA.  159 

unwilling  to  act,  thinking  they  will  not  have  a  fair  trial  without 
it."  Colonel  Barre  strongly  remonstrated  against  such  a  measure. 
The  Bill  was  to  protect  the  military  power  in  any  future  encounters 
with  the  people.*  The  king  rejoices  "  in  the  feebleness  and  futility 
of  opposition."  f  Mr.  Bancroft  says,  without  perhaps  any  very  ac- 
curate means  of  judging,  that  "  the  passions  of  the  British  ministry 
were  encouraged  by  the  British  people,  who  resented  the  denial  of 
their  supremacy,  and  made  the  cause  of  Parliament  their  own."f 
The  British  people  were  not  allowed  to  be  free  judges  of  the  great 
question  at  issue.  On  the  discussion  of  the  Bostonian  Bills,  Wai- 
pole  says,  "  The  doors  of  both  Houses  were  carefully  locked — a 
symptom  of  the  spirit  with  which  they  were  dictated.'"  §  Perhaps 
if  the  words  of  Edmund  Burke  had  gone  forth  to  the  world,  hot 
from  his  lips,  instead  of  oozing  out  in  a  pamphlet,  the  people  might 
have  thought  seriously  of  the  crisis  which  called  forth  his  eloquent 
philosophy.  His  speech  of  the  ipth  of  April,  on  American  taxation, 
has  passages  that  have  an  interest  for  all  time.  It  had  been  urged 
that  the  tax  upon  tea  is  trifling.  This  is  his  reply : — "  Could 
anything  be  a  subject  of  more  just  alarm  to  America,  than  to  see 
you  go  out  of  the  plain  high-road  of  finance,  and  give  up  your  most 
certain  revenues  and  your  dearest  interest,  merely  for  the  sake  of 
insulting  your  colonies  ?  No  man  ever  doubted  that  the  commodity 
of  tea  could  bear  an  imposition  of  three-pence.  But  no  commodity 
will  bear  three-pence,  or  will  bear  a  penny,  when  the  general  feel- 
ings of  men  are  iritated,  and  two  millions  of  people  are  resolved 
not  to  pay.  The  feelings  of  the  colonies  were  probably  the  feel- 
ings of  Great  Britain.  Theirs  were  formerly  the  feelings  of  Mr. 
Hampden  when  called  upon  for  the  payment  of  twenty  shillings. 
Would  twenty  shillings  have  ruined  Mr.  Hampden's  fortune  ? 
No !  but  the  payment  of  half  twenty  shillings,  on  the  principle  it 
was  demanded,  would  have  made  him  a  slave."  Lord  Carmarthen, 
as  Walpole  records,  produced  a  sensation  on  his  first  appearance 
in  the  House  of  Commons.  The  young  lord's  speech  prompted 
one  of  the  most  splendid  manifestations  of  Burke's  genius :  "  A 
noble  lord  who  spoke  some  time  ago,  is  full  of  the  fire  of  ingenuous 
youth  ;  and  when  he  has  modelled  the  ideas  of  a  lively  imagination 
by  further  experience,  he  will  be  an  ornament  to  his  country  in 
either  house.  He  has  said,  that  the  Americans  are  our  children,  and 
how  can  they  revolt  against  their  parent  ?  He  says,  if  they  are  not 

*  Lord  Mahon  has  not  looked  at  this  measure  with  his  usual  care.  He  says,  "  It  was 
imagined  that  no  fair  trial  could  be  had  within  the  limits  of  that  province  of  any  persons 
concerned  in  the  late  disturbances." — History,  vol.  vi.  p.  8. 

t  Note  to  lord  North,  23rd  March.  t  "  American  Revolution,"  vol.  iii.  p.  556. ' 

§  "  Last  Journals,"  p.  363. 


160  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

free  in  their  present  state,  England  is  not  free  ;  because  Manchester, 
and  other  considerable  places,  are  not  represented.  So  then,  because 
some  towns  in  England  are  not  represented,  America  is  to  have  no 
representative  at  all.  They  are  our  '  our  children ;  '  but  when 
children  ask  for  bread,  we  are  not  to  give  a  stone.  Is  it  because 
the  natural  resistance  of  things,  and  the  various  mutations  of  time, 
hinder  our  government,  or  any  scheme  of  government,  from  being 
any  more  than  a  sort  of  approximation  to  the  right,  is  it  therefore 
that  the  Colonies  are  to  recede  from  it  infinitely  ?  When  this 
child  of  ours  wishes  to  assimilate  to  its  parent,  and  to  reflect  with 
a  true  filial  resemblance  the  beauteous  countenance  of  British  lib- 
erty ;  are  we  to  turn  to  them  the  shameful  parts  of  our  constitution  ? 
are  we  to  give  them  our  weakness  for  their  strength  ;  our  oppro- 
brium for  their  glory  ;  and  the  slough  of  slavery,  which  we  are  not 
able  to  work  off,  to  serve  them  for  their  freedom  ?  " 

The  dangers  of  the  country  called  forth  Chatham  from  his 
retirement.  Walpole  describes  him  making  his  appearance  in  the 
House  of  Lords,  on  the  26th  of  May :  "  Lord  Chatham,  who  was  a 
comedian  even  to  his  dress,  to  excuse  his  late  absence  by  visible 
tokens  of  the  gout,  had  his  legs  wrapped  in  black  velvet  boots,  and, 
as  if  in  mourning  for  the  king  of  France,  he  leaned  on  a  crutch  cov- 
ered with  black  likewise."  *  Walpole  says,  "  he  made  a  long  feeble 
harangue."  There  are  portions  of  the  harangue  which  throw  a 
doubt  upon  the  taste  or  candour  of  the  journalist — the  opening 
passage  for  example  : 

"  If  we  take  a  transient  view  of  those  motives  which  induced 
the  ancestors  of  our  fellow-subjects  in  America  to  leave  their  native 
country  to  encounter  the  innumerable  difficulties  of  the  unexplored 
regions  of  the  Western  World,  our  astonishment  at  the  present 
conduct  of  their  descendants  will  naturally  subside.  There  was  no 
corner  of  the  world  into  which  men  of  their  free  and  enterprising 
spirit  would  not  fly  with  alacrity,  rather  than  submit  to  the  slavish 
and  tyrannical  principles  which  prevailed  at  that  period  in  their 
native  country.  And  shall  we  wonder,  my  lords,  if  the  descendants 
of  such  illustrious  characters  spurn  with  contempt  the  hand  of  un- 
constitutional power,  that  would  snatch  from  them  such  dear- 
bought  privileges  as  they  now  contend  for  ?  Had  the  British  col- 
onies been  planted  by  any  other  kingdom  than  our  own,  the  inhab- 
itants would  have  carried  with  them  the  chains  of  slavery  and  spirit 
of  despotism  ;  but  as  they  are,  they  ought  to  be  remembered  as 
great  instances  to  instruct  the  world  what  great  exertions  mankind 

*  "  Last  Journals,"  vol.  i.  p.  369.    (Louis  XV.  died  on  the  loth  of  May.) 


-SENTIMENTS    OF   THE   AMERICANS.  l6l 

will  naturally  make,  when  they  are  left  to  the  free  exercise  of  their 
own  powers." 

The  spirit  of  the  New  Englanders  took  the  s  ame  course  of 
thought  as  that  of  the  first  orator  of  the  mother-country.  In  pro- 
posing a  General  Congress  of  the  several  Houses  of  Assembly, 
John  Hancock  exclaimed,  "  Remember  from  whom  you  sprang."  * 
This  was  said  on  the  5th  of  March — two  days  before  lord  North 
had  delivered  to  Parliament  the  Royal  Message  which  was  the  pre- 
lude to  the  measures  which  the  British  government  believed  would 
ensure  the  submission  of  the  Colonists.  The  people  of  Massachu- 
setts, in  their  proceedings  of  the  i6th  of  December,  "had  passed 
the  river  and  cut  away  the  bridge."  f  Lord  Mansfield  called  upon 
the  Peers  to  delay  not  in  carrying  the  Boston  Port  Bill :  "  Pass 
this  Act,  and  you  will  have  crossed  the  Rubicon."  Before  the  men 
of  Massachusetts  knew  of  the  severities  that  were  hanging  over 
them,  the  most  violent  of  their  leaders,  Samuel  Adams,  had  offi- 
cially drawn  up  instructions  for  Franklin,  the  agent  for  the  colony, 
which  concluded  with  these  words  :  "  Their  old  good  will  and  af- 
fection for  the  parent  country  are  not  totally  lost.  If  she  returns 
to  her  former  moderation  and  good-humour,  their  affection  will 
revive.  They  wish  for  nothing  more  than  a  permanent  union  with 
her  upon  the  condition  of  equal  liberty.  This  is  all  they  have  been 
contending  for  ;  and  nothing  short  of  this  will  or  ought  to  satisfy 
them."  J  The  same  language  was  held  in  1774  by  George  Wash- 
ington. He  wrote  in  October  of  that  year,  to  a  friend  who  held 
the  rank  of  captain  in  the  English  army,  "  You  are  taught  to  be* 
lieve  that  the  people  of  Massachusetts  are  rebellious ;  setting  up 
for  independency  and  what  not.  Give  me  leave  to  tell  you,  you  are 
grossly  abused.  ...  I  cannot  announce  it  as  a  fact,  that  it  is  not 
the  wish  or  interest  of  that  government,  or  any  other  upon  this 
continent,  separately  or  collectively,  to  set  up  for  independence. 
But  this  you  may  at  the  same  time  rely  on,  that  none  of  them  will 
ever  submit  to  the  loss  of  those  valuable  rights  and  privileges  which 
are  essential  to  the  happiness  of  every  free  state,  and  without  which 
life,  liberty,  and  property,  are  rendered  totally  insecure." 

Such  were  the  sentiments,  even  of  the  moderate,  in  the  Ameri- 
can Colonies.  But  it  must  not  be  assumed  that  the  universal  opin- 
ion of  the  colonial  communities  was  represented  by  Samuel  Adams 
or  John  Hancock,  even  by  George  Washington  or  Thomas  Jeffer- 
son. There  was  a  large  party  in  every  province  who  were  avowed 
Royalists  ;  and  who  gradually  acquired  the  name  of  Tories.  They 

*  Bancroft,  vol.  iii.  p.  56:  t  J.  Adams,  quoted  by  Bancroft, 

t  Bancroft,  p.  563. 

VOL.  VI.— ii 


l62  HISTORY   OF    ENGLAND. 

were  not  wanting  in  encouragement  from  England.  They  had  the 
support  of  a  preponderating  majority  in  Parliament,  which  sanguine 
persons  thought  would  overawe  the  malcontents.  "  Nothing  can 
be  more  calculated,"  writes  the  king  to  lord  North,  "  to  bring  the 
Americans  to  a  due  submission  than  the  very  handsome  majority 
that  at  the  outset  appears  in  both  Houses."  This  was  written  on 
the  22nd  of  January,  1775,  anew  Parliament  having  met  on  the  pre- 
vious 29th  of  November.  The  American  Royalists  would  not  lack 
private  instigations  from  individuals  of  eminence  in  England,  to 
oppose  their  rebellious  countrymen.  The  conversational  opinions 
of  the  famous  Dr.  Johnson  might  reach  them,  even  before  they 
read  his  pamphlet,  "  Taxation  no  Tyranny."  They  might  be  told 
that  Edward  Gibbon,  of  rising  literary  reputation,  held  that  the 
right  was  on  the  side  of  the  mother  country.*  The  future  great 
historian  was  returned  to  Parliament  in  1774,  and  was  prepared  to 
speak  on  the  American  question,  if  he  could  have  overcome  "  timid- 
ity fortified  by  pride."  Whatever  may  be  now  the  prevailing  senti- 
ment upon  the  colonial  quarrel,  we  cannot  shut  our  eyes  to  the  fact 
that  the  controversy  was  one  that  involved  great  principles,  and 
called  forth  the  highest  energies  of  great  intellects.  On  either  side 
of  the  Atlantic  was  manifested  the  grandeur  of  the  Anglo-Saxon 
mind.  Chatham,  in  1775,  paid  a  deserved  tribute  to  the  qualities 
displayed  in  the  first  American  Congress  :  "  When  your  lordships 
look  at  the  papers  transmitted  us  from  America — when  you  con- 
sider their  decency,  firmness,  and  wisdom,  you  cannot  but  respect 
their  cause,  and  wish  to  make  it  your  own.  For  myself  I  must 
declare  and  avow,  that  in  all  my  reading  and  observation — (I  have 
read  Thucydides,  and  have  studied  and  admired  the  master-states 
of  the  world) — that  for  solidity  of  reasoning,  force  of  sagacity,  and 
wisdom  of  conclusion,  under  such  a  complication  of  difficult  cir- 
cumstances, no  nation  or  body  of  men  can  stand  in  preference  to 
the  General  Congress  at  Philadelphia.  I  trust  it  is  obvious  to  your 
lordships  that  all  attempts  to  impose  servitude  upon  such  men,  to 
establish  despotism  over  such  a  mighty  continental  nation,  must 
be  vain,  must  be  fatal."  Gibbon  has  described  the  striking  scene 
he  witnessed  in  the  British  House  of  Commons  :  "  I  assisted  at 
the  debates  of  a  free  assembly  ;  I  listened  to  the  attack  and  defence 
of  eloquence  and  reason  ;  I  had  a  near  prospect  of  the  character, 
views,  and  passions,  of  the  first  men  of  the  age.  The  cause  of 
government  was  ably  vindicated  by  lord  North,  a  statesman  of 
spotless  integrity,  a  consummate  master  of  debate,  who  could  wield, 
with  equal  dexterity,  the  arms  of  reason  and  of  ridicule.  He  was 

*  See  his  Letter  to  Holroyd.  3ist  January.  1771. 


LEADERS   OF   THE   HOUSE   OF   COMMONS.  163 

seated  on  the  treasury-bench  between  his  attorney  and  solicitor- 
general,  the  two  pillars  of  the  law  and  state,  magis  pares  quam 
similes ;  and  the  minister  might  indulge  in  a  short  slumber,  whilst 
he  was  upholden  on  either  hand  by  the  majestic  sense  of  Thurlow, 
and  the  skilful  eloquence  of  Wedderburn.  From  the  adverse  side 
of  the  house  an  ardent  and  powerful  opposition  was  supported  by 
the  lively  declamation  of  Barre,  the  legal  acuteness  of  Dunning,  the 
profuse  and  philosophical  fancy  of  Burke,  and  the  argumentative 
vehemence  of  Fox,  who,  in  the  conduct  of  a  party,  approved  him- 
self equal  to  the  conduct  of  an  empire.  By  such  men  every  oper- 
ation of  peace  and  war,  every  principle  of  justice  and  policy,  every 
question  of  authority  and  freedom,  was  attacked  and  defended  ; 
and  the  subject  of  the  momentous  contest  was  the  union  or  separ- 
ation of  Great  Britain  and  America.  The  eight  sessions  I  sat  in 
parliament  were  a  school  of  civil  prudence,  the  first  and  most  essen- 
tial virtue  of  an  historian."  * 

The  differences  of  opinion  in  America  ought  to  have  retarded 
the  terrible  issue  that  was  approaching.  The  fears  of  the  timid, 
the  hopes  of  the  loyal,  were  opposed  to  the  advocates  of  resistance, 
and  might  have  prevailed  to  avert  the  notion  of  independence.  In 
an  unhappy  hour,  blood  was  shed ;  and  conciliation  then  became  a 
word  that  was  uttered  to  deaf  ears  in  England  as  in  America.  We 
must  in  this  chapter  rapidly  trace  the  course  of  events  till  we  reach 
that  crisis. 

The  ministry  after  passing  their  coercive  Bills  had  determined 
to  send  out  general  Gage  to  supersede  Hutchinson  as  governor  of 
Massachusetts,  and  to  be  Commander  in  Chief  in  the  Colonies. 
He  would  have  to  act  upon  a  system  distinctly  opposed  to  the  old 
chartered  system  of  free  local  government.  He  undervalued,  as 
we  have  seen,  the  resistance  which  was  to  be  brought  against  him, 
and  relied  too  absolutely  upon  "  four  regiments."  His  appointment 
was  not  disagreeable  to  the  New  Englanders.  He  had  lived' 
amongst  them,  and  had  honourably  executed  the  military  authority 
with  which  he  had  been  previously  entrusted.  In  an  unhappy 
hour  he  arrived  at  Boston,  on  the  T3th  .of  May,  1774.  A  vessel 
which  came  there  before  him  brought  a  copy  of  the  Boston  Port 
Bill.  When  Gage  came  into  the  harbour,  the  people  were  holding 
a  meeting  to  discuss  that  Act  of  the  British  Legislature  which  de- 
prived them  of  their  old  position  in  the  commerce  of  the  world — 
which  doomed  their  merchants  and  all  dependent  upon  them  to  ab- 
solute ruin.  There  was  but  one  feeling.  The  meeting  entered 
into  resolutions,  to  which  they  invited  the  co-operation  of  the  other 

*  Autobiography. 


1 64  HISTORY   OF   ENGLAND. 

Colonies,  for  the  purpose  of  suspending  all  commercial  intercourse 
with  Great  Britain,  and  the  West  Indies,  until  the  Act  was  re- 
pealed. Copies  of  the  Act  were  everywhere  circulated,  printed 
with  a  black  border.  But  there  was  no  violence.  The  new  Gov- 
ernor was  received  with  decorum,  but  without  the  accustomed 
honours.  General  Gage  gave  the  Assembly  notice  that  on  the  1st 
of  June,  according  to  the  provisions  of  the  Act,  their  place  of 
meeting  would  be  removed  to  the  town  of  Salem.  When  the  spirit 
of  opposition  to  his  dictates  was  getting  up,  the  Governor  suddenly 
adjourned  the  Assembly.  He  was  asked  to  appoint  the  1st  of  June 
as  a  day  of  general  prayer  and  fasting.  He  refused.  In  Virginia 
the  House  of  Burgesses  appointed  the  ist  of  June  as  a  day  of  hu- 
miliation, to  avert  the  calamity  of  their  loss  of  rights,  or  the 
miseries  of  civil  war.  They  were  immediately  dissolved.  The 
Assembly  of  Virginia  did  not  separate  without  recommending  a 
General  Congress.  The  idea  universally  spread.  Meanwhile, 
general  Gage  had  an  encampment  of  six  regiments  on  a  common 
near  Boston,  and  had  begun  to  fortify  the  isthmus  which  connects 
the  town  with  the  adjacent  country.  The  ist  of  June  came.  There 
was  no  tumult.  Business  was  at  an  end  ;  Boston  had  become  a 
city  of  the  dead. 

The  first  Congress,  consisting  of  fifty-five  members,  met  at 
Philadelphia  on  the  4th  of  September.  The  place  of  their  meet- 
ing was  Carpenter's  Hall.  Peyton  Randolph  was  chosen  as  their 
President.  Their  proceedings  were  conducted  with  closed  doors. 
The  more  earnest  party  gradually  obtained  the  ascendancy  over 
the  more  timid.  They  drew  up  a  Declaration  of  Rights.  They 
passed  Resolutions  to  suspend  all  imports  from  Great  Britain  or  Ire- 
land after  the  ist  of  December,  and  to  discontinue  all  exports  after 
the  loth  of  September  in  the  ensuing  year,  unless  the  grievances  of 
America  should  be  redressed.  They  published  Addresses  to  the 
people  of  Great  Britain  and  of  Canada,  and  they  decided  upon  a 
petition  to  the  king.  These  were  the  papers  that  called  forth  the 
eulogium  of  Chatham.  The  Congress  dissolved  themselves  on  the 
26th  of  October ;  and  resolved  that  another  Congress  should  be 
convened  on  the  loth  of  May,  1775. 

After  the  ist  of  June  the  irremediable  conflict  between  the 
Governor  and  Representatives  of  the  people  soon  put  an  end  to  the 
legal  course  of  government.  General  Gage  was  so  wholly  deserted 
by  the  Council,  that  the  meeting  of  the  Assembly,  which  was  pro- 
posed to  take  place  at  Salem  in  October,  could  not  be  regularly 
convened.  Writs  for  the  election  of  members  had  been  issued, 
but  were  afterwards  annulled  by  proclamation.  The  elections  took 


MILITARY   PREPARATIONS.  165 

place.  The  persons  chosen  assembled,  and  styled  themselves  a 
Local  Congress.  A  Committee  of  safety  was  appointed.  They  en- 
rolled militia,  called  "  Minutemen,"  whose  engagement  was  that 
they  should  appear  in  arms  at  a  minute's  notice.  They  appointed 
commanders.  They  provided  ammunition.  The  knowledge  of  the 
two  Acts  of  Parliament  which  had  followed  that  for  shutting  up  the 
Port  of  Boston,  not  only  provoked  this  undisguised  resolve  to  re- 
sist to  the  death  amongst  the  people  of  Massachusetts,  but  called 
up  the  same  growing  determination  throughout  the  vast  continent 
of  America. 

The  new  Parliament  met  on  the  2Qth  of  November,  1774. 
There  was  an  end  of  the  agitations  about  Wilkes  ;  for,  having  been 
elected  for  Middlesex,  he  took  his  seat  without  opposition.  The 
king's  speech  asserted  his  determination  "  to  withstand  every 
attempt  to  weaken  or  impair  the  supreme  authority  of  this  Legisla- 
ture over  all  the  dominions  of  my  Crown."  Corresponding  Ad- 
dresses were  voted  in  both  Houses  with  a  large  majority.  In 
January,  lord  Chatham  brought  forward  a  motion  to  withdraw  the 
troops  from  Boston.  "  I  wish,  my  lords,"  he  said,  "  not  to  lose  a. 
day  in  this  urgent,  pressing  crisis.  An  hour  now  lost  in  allaying 
ferments  in  America  may  produce  years  of  calamity.  For  my  own 
part,  I  will  not  desert  for  a  moment  the  conduct  of  this  weighty 
business,  from  first  to  last.  Unless  nailed  to  my  bed  by  the  ex- 
tremity of  sickness,  I  will  give  it  unremitted  attention.  I  will 
knock  at  the  "door  of  this  sleeping  and  confounded  ministry,  and 
will  rouse  them  to  a  sense  of  their  important  danger."  Chatham 
knocked  in  vain  to  awaken  these  sleepers.  His  voice,  whose 
noble  utterance  cannot  now  be  read  without  stirring  the  heart,  was 
called  by  George  III.  "a  trumpet  of  sedition."  Again,  on  the  ist 
of  February,  that  voice  was  heard,  when  Chatham  presented  "a 
provisional  Bill  for  settling  the  troubles  in  America."  On  the  first 
occasion  he  had  only  eighteen  peers  to  vote  with  him  against  sixty- 
eight  ;  on  the  second  occasion  he  had  thirty-two  against  sixty-one. 
Franklin  heard  the  great  speech  of  the  2oth  January,  having  been 
conducted  into  the  House  by  Chatham  himself,  who  said  to  him, 
"  I  am  sure  your  presence  at  this  day's  debate  will  be  of  more  ser- 
vice to  America  than  mine."  This  was  some  compensation  to  that 
eminent  man  for  the  insults  of  Wedderburn.  Chatham's  second 
son,  the  child  of  his  hopes,  then  only  sixteen,  wrote  to  his  mother 
an  account  of  that  memorable  debate.  It  is  touching  to  observe 
the  young  William  Pitt's  deep  sympathy  with  his  father's  efforts : 
"  Nothing  prevented  his  speech  from  being  the  most  forcible  that 
can  be  imagined  ;  and  administration  fully  felt  it He 


1 66  HISTORY   OF   ENGLAND. 

is  lame  in  one  ankle,  near  the  instep,  from  standing  so  long.  No 
wonder  he  is  lame  ;  his  first  speech  lasted  above  an  hour,  and  the 
second  half  an  hour — surely,  the  two  finest  speeches  that  were 

ever   made  before,  unless   by  himself I   wish  I  had 

time  and  memory  to  give  an  account  of  all  I  heard,  and  all  I  felt."* 
Chatham's  oratory  was  in  vain.  The  ministry  that  night  declared 
they  would  send  out  more  troops,  instead  of  recalling  any.  Chat- 
ham's conciliatory  Bill  made  some  impression  upon  lord  North, 
who  proposed  a  very  weak  measure,  as  a  Resolution  of  the  House 
of  Commons,  that  if  any  of  the  American  provinces,  by  their  legis- 
lature, should  make  some  provision  for  the  defence  and  govern- 
ment of  that  province,  which  should  be  approved  by  the  king  and 
parliament,  then  it  might  be  proper  to  forbear  imposing  any  tax. 
This  was  to  attempt  to  put  out  a  conflagration  with  a  bucket  of 
water. 

If  the  highest  efforts  of  argument  could  have  been  availing, 
the  speech  of  Edmund  Burke,  on  the  22nd  of  March,  would  have 
arrested  the  headlong  course  of  the  government.  At  this  moment 
a  Bill  was  passing  both  Houses  which  Burke  called  "the  great 
penal  Bill  by  which  we  had  passed  sentence  on  the  trade  and  sus- 
tenance of  America."  It  was  a  Bill  to  prohibit  certain  Colonies 
from  fishing  on  the  banks  of  Newfoundland.  Great  Britain  was 
not  ashamed  to  resort  to  this  petty  measure  of  retaliation  against 
the  American  non-importation  agreements.  Burke  proposed  a 
series  of  conciliatory  Resolutions,  of  a  less  sweeping"  nature  than 
those  of  Chatham,  and  therefore  more  likely  to  be  acceptable  to 
men  of  temperate  opinions.  They  were  rejected  on  a  division  of 
two  hundred  and  seventy  against  seventy-eight.  The  speech  of 
the  great  statesman  presented  a  masterly  review  of  the  wonderful 
growth  of  the  American  Colonies, — their  successful  industry, — 
their  commercial  importance  to  Great  Britain.  The  whole  export 
trade  of  England,  including  the  colonial  trade,  was  six  millions  and 
a  half  in  1704.  The  export  trade  to  the  colonies  alone  was  six 
millions  in  1772.  These  statistical  facts  were  suddenly  illumined 
by  a  burst  of  oratory,  perhaps  unrivalled.  Allen,  lord  Bathurst,  to 
whom  Pope  addressed  his  "  Epistle  on  the  Use  of  Riches," — Bat- 
hurst  "  unspoiled  by  wealth,"  the  father  of  the  Lord  Chancellor  of 
1775, — was  cited  by  Burke  as  one  that  might  remember  all  the 
stages  of  the  growth  of  our  national  prosperity.  He  was  in  1704 
"of  an  age  at  least  to  be  made  to  comprehend  such  things." 
"  Suppose  that  the  angel  of  that  auspicious  youth  "  had  opened  to 
him  in  vision  the  fortunes  of  his  house  in  the  twelfth  year  of  the 

*  "  Chatham  Correspondence,"  vol.  iv.  p.  376. 


RAPID   GROWTH    OF    AMERICA.  167 

third  prince  of  the  line  of  Brunswick :  "  If  amidst  these  bright  and 
happy  scenes  of  domestic  honour  and  prosperity,  that  angel  should 
have  drawn  up  the  curtain,  and  unfolded  the  rising  glories  of  his 
country,  and  whilst  he  was  gazing  with  admiration  on  the  then 
commercial  grandeur  of  England,  the  genius  should  point  out  to 
him  a  little  speck,  scarce  visible  in  the  mass  of  the  national  inter- 
est, a  small  seminal  principle,  rather  than  a  formed  body,  and 
should  tell  him — '  Young  man,  there  is  America — which  at  this  day 
serves  for  little  more  than  to  amuse  you  with  stories  of  savage 
men,  and  uncouth  manners  ;  yet  shall,  before  you  taste  of  death, 
show  itself  equal  to  the  whole  of  that  commerce  which  now  attracts 
the  envy  of  the  world.  Whatever  England  has  been  growing  to 
by  a  progressive  increase  of  improvement,  brought  in  by  varieties 
of  people,  by  a  succession  of  civilizing  conquests  and  civilizing 
settlements  in  a  series  of  seventeen  hundred  years,  you  shall  see 
as  much  added  to  her  by  America  in  the  course  of  a  single  life.' 
If  this  state  of  his  country  had  been  foretold  to  him,  would  it  not 
require  all  the  sanguine  credulity  of  youth,  and  all  the  fervid  glow 
of  enthusiasm,  to  make  him  believe  it  ?  Fortunate  man,  he  has 
lived  to  see  it !  Fortunate  indeed,  if  he  lives  to  see  nothing  that 
shall  vary  the  prospect,  and  cloud  the  setting  of  his  day !  " 

Allen,  earl  Bathurst,  lived  long  enough  to  see  the  prospect 
clouded  over,  but  not  to  behold  that  sun  set  which  was  predicted 
to  follow  the  separation  of  Great  Britain  from  her  North  American 
Colonies.  It  was  for  later  times  to  behold  the  cloud  passing  away 
from  the  old  monarchy  and  the  young  republic.  In  that  year  of 
1775,  when  Burke  was  thus  pointing  to  the  remembrances  of  an 
eminent  living  man,  to  contrast  "  the  little  speck  scarce  visible  in 
the  mass  of  the  national  interest,"  with  the  continent  which  con. 
tained  two  millions  of  prosperous  colonists, — in  that  year  there 
came  to  England  an  American  painter,  with  a  son  who  would  gradu- 
ally comprehend  the  mighty  changes  which  were  then  going  on  in 
the  country  of  his  birth.  If  the  angel  of  this  auspicious  boy  should 
have  drawn  up  the  curtain,  and  unfolded  the  glories  of  America 
when  he  was  to  be  Lord  Chancellor  of  England,  would  it  not  have 
required  all  the  sanguine  credulity  of  youth,  and  all  the  fervid  glow 
of  enthusiasm,  to  have  made  John  Singleton  Copley  believe  that 
the  woods  in  which  his  father  taught  himself  to  paint  should  be 
covered  with  mighty  cities,  that  the  Republic  of  the  United  States 
should  contain  a  population  of  twenty-three  millions,  and  that  the 
commerce  of  those  States  should,  next  to  that  of  Great  Britain,  be 
the  largest  in  the  world  ? 

The  contrarieties  of  public  opinion  in  Great  Britain  and  Ireland 


1 68  HISTORY   OF    ENGLAND. 

upon  the  American  question,  were  exhibited  in  petitions  from  vari- 
ous corporate  bodies.  Many  manufacturing  towns  petitioned 
against  the  coercion  Acts,  as  destructive  of  the  commerce  of  the 
country.  Other  petitions  called  for  an  enforcement  of  the  legisla- 
tive supremacy  of  Great  Britain,  as  the  only  means  of  preserving  a 
trade  with  the  Colonies.  There  were  war-petitions  and  peace-peti- 
tions. Those  who  signed  the  war-petitions  were  held  to  be  mere 
party-men  known  as  Tories.  Those  who  signed  the  peace-petitions 
were  discontented  Whigs,  or  something  worse.  The  Quakers, 
whilst  they  exhorted  to  peace,  maintained  the  loyalty  of  all  reli- 
gious denominations  in  America  to  the  king's  person,  family  and 
government.  The  citizens  of  London,  with  Wilkes  at  their  head 
as  lord-mayor,  presented  an  Address  and  Remonstrance  to  the 
king  on  the  throne,  in  which  they  denounced  the  measures  of  the 
government  as  deliberately  intended  to  establish  arbitrary  power 
all  over  America.  The  king  answered,  that  it  was  with  the  utmost 
astonishment  that  he  found  any  of  his  subjects  capable  of  encourag- 
ing the  rebellious  disposition  which  existed  in  some  of  his  Colo- 
nies in  America.  From  such  different  points  of  view  did  men  re- 
gard this  great  argument.  As  usual  in  England,  the  most  serious 
questions  had  their  ludicrous  aspect.  Caricatures  were  numerous. 
One  represented  America  as  a  struggling  female,  held  down  by 
lord  Mansfield,  whilst  lord  North  was  drenching  her  with  "  a 
strong  dose  of  tea."  In  another,  Britannia  is  thrown  down  upon 
her  child  America,  whilst  lord  North  is  pumping  upon  both  of 
them,  looking  exultingly  through  his  eye-glass,*  The  partisans  of 
the  minister  struck  a  medal  in  his  honour. 

The  close  of  1774  was,  in  Massachusetts,  the  silence  before 
the  storm.  The  people  were  arming.  The  Provincial  Congress 
had  formed  an  arsenal  at  Concord,  an  inland  town.  The  British 
troops  made  no  movements  during  the  winter  to  interfere  with 
these  hostile  demonstrations.  In  his  speech  of  the  27th  of  January, 
Chatham  alluded  to  the  position  of  the  royal  forces  :  "  Their  situa- 
tion is  truly  unworthy  ;  penned  up ;  pining  in  inglorious  inactivity. 
.  .  .  .  I  find  a  report  creeping  abroad  that  ministers  censure 
general  Gage's  inactivity It  is  a  prudent  and  neces- 
sary inaction This  tameness,  however  contemptible, 

cannot  be  censured  ;  for  the  first  drop  of  blood  shed  in  civil  and 
unnatural  war  might  be  immedicabile  vulnus"  That  incurable 
wound  was,  too  soon,  to  be  inflicted. 

On  the  evening  of  the  i8th  of  April,  lieut.-colonel  Smith,  of  the 
loth  foot,  marched,  by  order  of  governor  Gage,  with  a  body  of 

*  See  Wright's  "  House  of  Hanover,"  voL  ii.  p.  22. 


HOSTILITIES   COMMENCED   AT   LEXINGTOU.  169 

grenadiers  and  light  infantry,  for  Concord,  with  the  purpose  of  de- 
stroying all  the  military  stores  collected  there.  "  Notwithstand- 
ing," writes  lieut.-colonel  Smith  in  his  dispatch,  "  we  marched  with 
the  utmost  expedition  and  secrecy,  we  found  the  country  had  in- 
telligence or  strong  suspicion  of  our  coming,  and  fired  many  signal 
guns,  and  rung  the  alarm  bells  repeatedly ;  and  we  were  informed, 
when  at  Concord,  that  some  cannon  had  been  taken  out  of  town 
that  day;  that  others,  with  some  stores,  had  been  carried  away 
three  days  before,  which  prevented  our  having  an  opportunity  of 
destroying  so  much  as  might  have  been  expected  at  our  first  set- 
ting off."  Six  light  infantry  companies  were  dispatched  to  seize 
two  brigades  on  different  roads  beyond  Concord.  They  found 
country  people  drawn  on  a  green,  with  arms  and  accoutrements. 
The  troops  advanced,  according  to  the  lieutenant-colonel,  without 
any  intention  of  injuring  the  people  ;  but,  nevertheless,  they  were 
fired  upon,  and  the  soldiers  fired  again.  When  the  detachment 
reached  Concord,  there  was  a  more  serious  skirmish,  with  a  very 
considerable  body  of  countrymen.  "  At  Concord,"  the  narrative 
continues,  "  we  found  very  few  inhabitants  in  the  town  ;  those  we 
met  with,  both  major  Pitcairn  and  myself  took  all  possible  pains  to 
convince  that  we  meant  them  no  injury,  and  that  if  they  opened 
their  doors  when  required  to  search  for  military  stores,  not  the 
slightest  mischief  would  be  done.  We  had  opportunities  of  con- 
vincing them  of  our  good  intentions,  but  they  were  sulky,  and  one 
of  them  even  struck  major  Pitcairn.  On  our  leaving  Concord  to  re- 
turn to  Boston,  they  began  to  fire  on  us  from  behind  walls,  ditches, 
trees,  &c.,  which,  as  we  marched,  increased  to  a  very  great  degree, 
and  continued  without  the  intermission  of  five  minutes  altogether, 
for,  I  believe,  upwards  of  eighteen  miles ;  so  that  I  can't  think  but 
it  must  have  been  a  preconcerted  scheme  in  them  to  attack  the 
king's  troops  the  first  favourable  opportunity  that  offered,  other- 
wise I  think  they  could  not,  in  so  short  a  time  as  from  our  march- 
ing out,  have  raised  such  a  numerous  body,  and  for  so  great  a 
space  of  ground."  *  The  destruction  of  the  detachment  under 
lieut.-colonel  Smith  by  a  large  body  of  infuriated  men,  was  averted 
by  the  arrival  at  Lexington  of  a  reinforcement  sent  out  by  general 
Gage.  The  British  continued  to  retreat  before  their  resolute  op- 
ponents. They  did  not  reach  their  quarters  till  night  had  fallen — 
worn  out  with  fatigue,  and  with  a  loss  of  two  or  three  hundred  in 
killed,  wounded,  and  prisoners.  There  was  no  open  fight,  for  the 
minute-men  were  in  ambush,  and  picked  off  the  officers  and  men  of 

*  From  despatch  in  the  State  Paper  Office — given  by  Mahon,  Appendix  to  vol.  vi. 


170  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

the  detachment  from  their  secure  hiding  amongst  trees  and  behind 
stone  walls. 

The  news  of  the  affair  of  Lexington  arrived  in  England  at  the 
end  of  May.  The  Provincial  Congress  of  Massachusetts  knew  the 
effect  that  would  be  produced  upon  public  opinion  in  the  mother 
country  when  it  should  be  learnt  that  the  king's  troops  had  been 
defeated.  The  day  after  the  skirmish,  this  Congress  dispatched  a 
vessel  to  England,  without  freight,  for  the  sole  purpose  of  carrying 
letters  detailing  his  triumph.  Walpole  has  described  the  impres- 
sion produced  by  the  receipt  of  this  intelligence  in  London  ; — 
"  May  28.  Arrived  a  light  sloop,  sent  by  the  Americans  from 
Salem,  with  an  account  of  their  having  defeated  the  king's  troops.1' 
He  then  gives  details  of  the  news  received,  which  seems  to  have 
been  free  from  exaggeration.  "  The  advice  was  immediately  dis- 
persed, while  the  government  remained  without  any  intelligence. 
Stocks  immediately  fell.  The  provincials  had  behaved  with  the 
greatest  conduct,  coolness,  and  resolution.  One  circumstance  spoke 
a  thorough  determination  of  resistance  :  the  provincials  had  sent 
over  affidavits  of  all  that  had  passed,  and  a  colonel  of  the  militia 
had  sworn  in  an  affidavit,  that  he  had  given  his  men  orders  to  fire 
on  the  king's  troops,  if  the  latter  attacked  them.  It,  was  firmness, 
indeed,  to  swear  to  having  been  the  first  to  begin  what  the  Parlia- 
ment had  named  rebellion.  Thus  was  the  civil  war  begun,  and  a 
victory  the  first  fruits  of  it  on  the  side  of  the  Americans,  whom  lord 
Sandwich  had  had  the  folly  and  rashness  to  proclaim  cowards." 

Whilst  the  provincials  of  Masschusetts  and  the  troops  of  gen- 
eral Gage  had  thus  been  brought  into  a  collision  which  had  more 
the  character  of  accident  than  of  preconcerted  hostilities,  a  bold  and 
successful  attempt  was  made  in  another  quarter,  which  could  only 
be  interpreted  as  a  deliberate  act  of  warfare.  Forty  volunteers, 
well  armed,  had  set  out,  at  the  instigation  of  some  leading  men  of 
Connecticut,  to  form  part  of  an  expedition  which  was  to  attack 
Ticonderoga,  a  fort  on  Lake  George,  and  Crown  Point,  a  fort  on 
Lake  Champlain.  If  these  were  taken,  the  invasion  of  Canada  by 
the  American  militia  would  be  greatly  facilitated.  The  Connecticut 
volunteers  were  joined  on  their  march  by  Ethan  Allen,  who  had 
many  volunteers  under  his  command ;  and  by  Benedict  Arnold, 
who  subsequently  obtained  a  celebrity  not  the  most  honourable. 
Ticonderoga  was  garrisonetl  by  only  forty-four  soldiers,  under  the 
command  of  captain  De  la  Place.  On  the  morning  of  the  loth  of 
May,  the  commander  was  roused  in  his  bed  ;  saw  his  fort  sur- 
rounded by  several  hundred  men  in  arms  ;  and  was  required  to 
surrender  "  in  the  name  of  the  Great  Jehovah  and  the  Continental 


WASHINGTON'S  VIEW  OF  CIVIL  WAR.  171 

Congress."  The  demand  was  not  resisted.  Crown  Point  was 
also  surprised  by  the  same  body  of  adventurers. 

The  affair  of  Lexington  was  the  commencement  of  the  Ameri- 
can war.  More  decisive  encounters  very  speedily  followed  between 
the  king's  troops  and  many  thousand  Americans  in  arms.  How 
this  first  contest  was  regarded  by  the  noblest  of  the  men  who  built 
up  the  independence  of  their  country,  we  find  in  a  letter  from 
Washington  to  a  friend  in  England  :  ''General  Gage  acknowledged, 
that  the  detachment  under  lieut.-colonel  Smith  was  sent  out  to  de- 
stroy private  property  ;  or,  in  other  words,  to  destroy  a  magazine, 
which  self-preservation  obliged  the  inhabitants  to  establish.  And 
he  also  confesses,  in  effect  at  least,  that  his  men  made  a' very  pre- 
cipitate retreat  from  Concord,  notwithstanding  the  reinforcement 
under  lord  Percy  ;  the  last  of  which  may  serve  to  convince  lord 
Sandwich,  and  others  of  the  same  sentiment,  that  the  Americans 
will  fight  for  their  liberties  and  property,  however  pusillanimous  in 
his  lordship's  eye  they  may  appear  in  other  respects  ....  Un- 
happy it  is,  though,  to  reflect  that  a  brother's  sword  has  been 
sheathed  in  a  brother's  breast,  and  that  the  once  happy  and  peace- 
ful plains  of  America  are  either  to  be  drenched  with  blood,  or 
inhabited  by  slaves.  Sad  alternative  !  But  can  a  virtuous  man 
hesitate  in  his  choice  ?  " 

On  the  day  that  Ticonderoga  fell  in  the  hands  of  these  Ameri- 
can partisans,  the  General  Congress  assembled  for  the  second 
time  at  Philadelphia. 


We  have  dealt  somewhat  fully  with  the  circumstances  which  pre- 
ceded the  unfortunate  contest  between  Great  Britain  and  her  North 
American  Colonies.  We  have  endeavoured  to  exhibit  the  general 
agreement  which  existed  between  the  principles  maintained  by 
the  Colonists,  and  those  of  the  English  statesmen  who  are  now  re- 
garded as  the  true  representatives  of  the  national  mind  in  its  high- 
est sense — the  mind  of  the  dispassionate  and  enlightened  few  of 
those  times,  and  that  of  the  more  general  enlightenment  of  our  own 
time.  Happily  the  day  has  long  since  past  when  either  the 
citizen  of  the  Republic  of  the  United  States,  or  the  subject  of  the 
Monarchy  of  the  United  Kingdom,  can  read  a  narrative  of  the 
great  struggle  which  resulted  in  American  Independence,  with  any 
sentiment  of  vindictiveness.  In  the  circumstances  which  preceded 
the  actual  war,  and  during  the  continuance  of  the  war,  there  were 
noble  feelings  called  forth  in  the  parent  country,  and  in  the  revolted 
provinces,  which  showed  how  truly  that  spirit  of  liberty  was  up- 


172  HISTORY   OF    ENGLAND. 

held  which  was  common  to  both  : — which  had  descended  from 
the  time  of  Alfred  ;  which  had  never  been  lost  under  Plantagenet 
or  Tudor  ;  which  had  gone  forth  to  colonize  New  England  when 
a  Stuart  made  Old  England  unsafe  for  free  men  to  dwell  in ;  which, 
having  expelled  the  oppressors,  drew  new  breath  under  a  Bill  of 
Rights.  It  was  the  spirit  which  spoke  in  the  eloquence  of  Chat- 
ham ;  which  asserted  itself  in  the  sagacity  and  moderation  of 
Washington.  Looking  at  the  other  side  in  the  great  contest, 
whether  the  majority  of  the  legislature  and  people  of  Great  Britain, 
or  the  American  Royalist,  it  would  not  be  just  to  view  them  as  as- 
sertors  of  arbitrary  doctrines,  intent  upon  reducing  their  fellow-men 
to  slavery.  They  acted  upon  a  mistaken  principle,  which  they 
believed  to  be  a  constitutional  right.  The  errors  have  not  been 
without  their  use,  if  they  have  led  to  that  better  understanding  of 
the  relations  between  a  State  and  its  Colonies  which  prevails  in 
our  own  day. 


FRANKLIN'S  RETURN  TO  AMERICA.  173 


CHAPTER  X. 

Franklin's  return  to  America. — Meeting  of  Congress  at  Philadelphia. — Washington  elect- 
ed Commander-in-chief. — Events  at  Boston. — Battle  of  Bunker's  Hill. — Washing- 
ton blockades  Boston. — Public  opinion  in  England. — Petition  from  Congress  to  the 
King. — Mr.  Penn,  the  bearer  of  the  petition,  examined  in  the  House  of  Lords. — Lord 
North's  Prohibitory  Bill. — Invasion  of  Canada. — Silas  Deane  sent  to  Paris. — Dec- 
laration of  Independence  adopted  by  Congress. — Note :  The  Declaration. 

AT  the  end  of  March,  1775,  that  remarkable  man,  Benjamin 
Franklin,  who,  fifty  years  before,  had  been  working  in  London  as  a 
journeyman  printer,  turned  his  back  upon  that  England  where  he 
had  received  all  honour  as  a  philosopher,  to  become  one  of  her 
most  strenuous  opponents  in  the  struggle  of  his  native  country  for 
independence.  He  left  England — as  we  learn  from  a  letter  written 
a  short  time  before  his  departure — with  a  firm  conviction  that  her 
system  of  government  was  conducting  her  to  ruin  and  disgrace- 
He  deprecated  any  further  attempt  to  restore  united  interests 
between  the  mother-country  and  her  colonies  :  "  When  I  consider," 
he  writes,  "the  extreme  corruption  prevalent  among  all  orders  of 
men  in  the  old  rotten  state,  and  the  glorious  public  virtue  so  pre- 
dominant in  our  rising  country,  I  cannot  but  apprehend  more  mis- 
chief than  benefit  from  a  close  union.  .  .  .  Here,  numberless  and 
needless  places,  enormous  salaries,  pensions,  perquisites,  bribes, 
groundless  quarrels,  foolish  expeditions,  false  accounts  or  no  ac- 
counts, contracts  and  jobs,  devour  all  revenue,  and  produce  con- 
tinual necessity  in  the  midst  of  natural  plenty."  *  Making  every 
allowance  for  one  whose  endeavours  to  promote  peace  had  been 
met  with  neglect  and  insult,  much  of  this  severe  description  is 
undoubtedly  true.  But  Franklin  still  shrunk  from  war.  "  I  would 
try  anything,  and  bear  anything  that  can  be  borne  with  safety  to 
our  just  liberties,  rather  than  engage  in  a  war  with  such  relations, 
unless  compelled  to  it  by  dire  necessity  in  our  own  defence."  On 
the  5th  of  May  he  arrived  in  Philadelphia.  On  the  6th  he  was 
elected  by  the  Assembly  of  Pennsylvania  one  of  the  deputies  to 
the  Continental  Congress  appointed  to  meet  on  the  loth.  In  a  few 
days  came  the  news  of  the  first  fatal  contest  at  Lexington  ;  and 

*  "  Franklin's  Works,"  by  Sparks,  vol.  viii.  p.  146 — Letter  to  Galloway,  February  25, 


174  HISTORY   OF    ENGLAND. 

then  Franklin  writes  to  Priestley  in  England  :  "  All  America  is 
exasperated.  The  breach  between  the  two  countries  is  grown 
wider,  and  in  danger  of  becoming  irreparable."  * 

The  Congress  assembled  at  Philadelphia,  composed  of  deputies 
from  thirteen  States,  held  at  first  a  common  agreement  only  upon 
one  principle, — the  determination  to  resist  the  claim  of  the  British 
government  to  tax  the  American  colonies  without  their  consent. 
But  the  mode  of  resistance,  and  the  probable  consequences  of 
resistance,  involved  great  differences  of  opinion.  The  provincial 
Assemblies  which  had  elected  these  deputies  were  composed  of 
members  who,  in  their  aggregate  character,  represented  various 
interests, — the  agricultural  and  the  commercial ;  who  had  varieties 
of  national  origin,  Dutch,  German,  Swedish,  as  well  as  English  ; 
who  professed  various  forms  of  religion.  In  the  State  where  the 
Congress  assembled,  the  majority  were  Quakers,  who  would  cleave, 
as  long  as  possible,  to  peaceful  councils.  The  deputies  from 
Massachusetts,  on  the  contrary,  irritated  in  their  continual  struggle 
with  the  authority  of  England,  deprived  of  their  charter,  ruined  in 
their  commerce,  would  see  no  solution  of  their  difficulties  but  in 
open  war.  There  were  several  weeks  of  indecision  ;  but,  gradually 
the  more  timid  councils  yielded  to  the  bolder.  The  moderate — 
who  clung  to  union  with  England,  from  the  thought  of  a  common 
ancestry,  from  respect  to  the  state  which  had  given  them  the  model 
of  free  institutions,  from  commercial  interests — were  alienated  by 
the  obstinate  refusal  of  the  British  legislature  to  adopt  reasonable 
measures  of  conciliation.  The  local  Assemblies  were  using  more 
determined  language,  and  were  organizing  their  provincial  forces, 
as  if  there  were  to  be  a  foreign  enemy  to  be  resisted.  At  Boston, 
the  military  authority  of  the  Crown,  and  the  armed  resistance  of 
the  colonists,  stood  face  to  face ;  and  no  one  could  doubt  that  a 
more  deadly  trial  of  strength  than  that  of  the  ipth  of  April,  would 
speedily  be  the  result.  On  the  news  of  that  day,  numerous  bodies 
of  militia-men  were  on  the  march  towards  Boston,  under  bold 
leaders,  who  left  their  ordinary  occupations  to  place  themselves  at 
the  head  of  their  neighbours.  Such  was  Israel  Putnam,  a  farmer 
and  tavern-keeper,  who  became  one  of  the  generals  of  the  revolu- 
tionary war.  For  a  month,  the  British  troops,  who  had  exclusive 
possession  of  Boston,  were  harassed  by  the  incessant  activity  of 
partisans  who  cut  off  supplies  from  the  interior.  General  Gage 
was  blockaded  in  his  stronghold,  having  only  communication  by 
sea.  Many  of  the  inhabitants  had  been  permitted  to  leave  the 
city  with  their  effects.  Others  remained,  not  being  allowed  to 

*  "  Franklin's  Works,"  by  Sparks,  vol.  iii.  p.  154. 


EVENTS   AT   BOSTON. 


Blitt 


consider  their  merchandise  as  effects.  On  the  25th  of  May,  rein- 
forcements arrived  from  England,  under  the  command  of  gen- 
erals Burgoyne,  Howe,  and  Clinton ;  and  the  force  under  general 
Gage  now  reached  ten  thousand  men.  Such  an  army,  it  might 
well  be  imagined,  would  be  powerful  to  crush  the  irregular  troops 
which  were  surrounding  Boston.  Martial  law  was  proclaimed  by 
the  British  commander,  and  a  pardon  offered  to  all  who  would  lay 
down  their  arms,  except  John  Hancock  and  Samuel  Adams.  The 
two  proscribed  men  were  naturally  the  boldest  advocates  for  war- 
like measures  in  the  Congress  at  Philadelphia.  That  body  had 
resolved  to  petition  the  king ;  still  clinging  to  hopes  of  pacification. 
But  the  course  of  events  rendered  such  a  policy  hopeless.  The 
olive  branch  had  been  sent  to  England ;  the  sword  had  been  drawn 
in  America.  The  Congress  passed  from  a  deliberative  assembly 
into  an  executive  power.  The  deputies  had  agreed  upon  articles 
of  confederation  and  perpetual  union,  under  the  name  of  "  The 
United  Colonies  of  North  America  ;  "  with  authority  to  determine 
on  war  and  peace,  and  on  reconciliation  with  Great  Britain ;  to 
raise  troops ;  to  appoint  all  officers  civil  and  military.  They  re- 
solved to  provide  for  munitions  of  war  by  the  issue  of  a  paper 
currency.  They  appointed  a  commander-in-chief  of  the  confederate 
forces  now  to  be  called  the  Continental  Army.  That  commander 
was  George  Washington. 

The  early  military  career  of  Washington  has  been  briefly  traced 
in  a  former  chapter.*  Twenty  years  before  he  was  thus  selected 
for  the  greatest  trust  that  could  be  reposed  in  a  man,  he  was  fight- 
ing in  the  British  ranks  against  the  French  on  the  Ohio.  He  had 
no  subsequent  military  experience.  Possessing  ample  means,  he 
resided  upon  his  estate  in  Virginia,  called  Mount  Vernon,  a  plain 
country  gentleman,  managing  his  property  with  a  skilful  economy ; 
engaging  in  those  field  sports  which  were  agreeable  to  his  vigorous 
constitution  ;  reading  and  meditating  upon  the  past  and  the  present 
with  intelligent  curiosity ;  giving  a  month  or  two  of  the  year  to  his 
public  duties  as  a  member  of  the  House  of  Burgesses.  He  was 
neither  learned  nor  eloquent ;  he  was  modest  and  retiring.  But 
by  the  undeviating  exercise  of  his  sound  judgment  and  his  rigid 
integrity  he  had  required  a  reputation  in  his  own  colony  which  had 
extended  to  other  States.  His  strongest  recommendations  as  Com- 
mander-in-Chief  came  from  Massachusetts.  The  consistent  force 
of  his  character  procured  for  him  a  confidence  that  the  noisy  dem- 
agogue or  the  dashing  partizan  could  not  obtain.  On  the  i6th  of 
June  his  appointment  was  officially  announced  to  him  when  he  took 

'••'  Ante,  vol.  v.  p.  598. 


176  HISTORY   OF   ENGLAND. 

his  seat  in  the  Congress.  He  would  enter,  he  said,  upon  the  mo- 
mentous duty,  although  he  did  not  think  himself  equal  to  the  com- 
mand he  was  honoured  with.  He  added,  that  as  no  pecuniary  con^ 
sideration  could  have  tempted  him  to  accept  this  arduous  employ- 
ment at  the  expense  of  his  domestic  ease  and  happiness,  he  had 
no  desire  to  make  a  profit  by  it.  He  would  take  no  pay.  He  would 
keep  an  exact  account  of  his  expenses,  and  those  he  doubted  not 
would  be  discharged.  To  his  wife  he  wrote  that  it  was  utterly  out 
of  his  power  to  refuse  the  appointment,  although  he  had  used  every 
endeavour  to  avoid  it.  "  But  as  it  has  been  a  kind  of  destiny  that 
has  thrown  me  upon  this  service,  I  shall  hope  that  my  undertaking 
it  is  designed  to  answer  some  good  purpose." 

The  Congress,  upon  the  acceptance  by  Washington  of  his  ap- 
pointment, resolved  that  it  was  necessary  that  he  should  immedi- 
ately proceed  to  Boston  to  take  upon  himself  the  command  of  the 
army  round  that  town.  That  army  has  been  described  as  a  mixed 
multitude,  under  very  little  discipline  or  order.  They  wanted  many 
of  the  necessaries  of  war,  especially  ammunition.  The  men  were 
brave — far  braver  than  some  of  the  insolent  dependents  upon  the 
British  ministry  were  willing  to  believe.  "  It  was  romantic  to  think 
they  would  fight,"  said  Rigby,  one  of  the  parliamentary  jobbers 
who  lived  upon  corruption.  "  There  was  more  military  prowess 
in  a  militia  drummer."  *  Before  Washington  arrived  at  the  camp 
near  Boston,  on  the  3rd  of  July,  the  Provincials  had  shown  how 
"  they  would  fight." 

Boston  is  built  upon  a  peninsula.  An  isthmus  on  the  south  con- 
nected the  peninsula  with  the  mainland.  A  promontory,  then  called 
Dorchester  Neck,  now  South  Boston,  had  heights  which  com- 
manded the  town,  and  which  are  now  fortified.  On  the  east  was 
the  harbour ;  on  the  west  the  Charles  River.  Divided  from  Boston 
on  the  north  by  this  river,  was  Charles  Town,  also  a  peninsula. 
At  the  northern  extremity,  bounded  by  the  Mystic  River,  is  the 
height  of  Bunker's  Hill ;  and  lower  down,  nearer  Charles  Town,  is 
Breed's  Hill.  An  army  having  possession  of  these  two  hills  on  the 
north,  and  of  Dorchester  heights  on  the  south,  would  have  Boston 
at  its  mercy .f  The  British  generals  had  seen  the  importance  of 
the  acclivities  of  Charles  Town,  and  had  determined  to  land  a  force 
to  take  possession  of  them  on  the  i8th  of  June.  This  became 
known  to  the  Massachusetts  Committee  of  Safety ;  and  it  was  re- 
solved to  anticipate  the  movement  of  the  British,  by  establishing 
a  post  on  Bunker's  Hill.  After  sunset  on  the  i6th  of  June,  a 

*  Walpole — "  Last  Journals,"  vol.  i.  p.  481. 

1  See  plan  of  Boston,  in  Maps  of  Useful  Knowledge  Society. 


BATTLE  OF  BUNKER  HILL, —  Vol.  vi.  177. 


BATTLE   OF    BUNKER'S    HILL.  177 

brigade  of  a  thousand  men,  under  the  command  of  William  Pres- 
cott,  assembled  on  Cambridge  Common,  armed  mostly  with  fowl- 
ing-pieces, and  carrying  their  powder  and  ball  in  horns  and  pouches. 
A  proclamation  had  been  issued  from  the  British  head-quarters, 
that  all  persons  taken  in  arms  should  be  hanged  as  rebels.  The 
rebels  marched  on  with  a  determination  never  to  be  taken  alive. 
They  crossed  Charles  Town  Neck;  and  took  up  their  position,  not 
on  Bunker's  Hill,  as  the  Committee  of  Safety  had  proposed,  but  on 
Breed's  Hill.  They  had  an  engineer  with  them,  and  abundance  of 
intrenching  tools.  The  lines  of  a  redoubt  were  drawn ;  and  the 
troops  who,  in  their  occupations  of  husbandmen  had  useful  famil- 
iarity with  spades  and  pickaxes,  worked  through  the  night,  whilst 
their  commander  anxiously  listened  for  any  extraordinary  move- 
ment that  would  indicate  they  were  discovered  by  the  ships  of*war 
in  the  harbour.  The  defences  were  nearly  completed  as  day 
dawned.  Then  the  redoubt,  which  had  arisen  in  the  night,  as  if  by 
magic,  was  visible  to  the  British  naval  and  land  officers,  with 
throngs  of  men  still  labouring  at  their  entrenchments.  The  can- 
non of  the  Lively  sloop  commenced  a  fire  upon  the  earth-works ; 
and  a  battery  was  mounted  on  the  Boston  side,  on  a  mound  called 
Copp's  Hill.  The  Americans  continued  to  extend  their  lines, 
whilst  shot  and  shell  were  dropping  around  them.  The  cannonade 
was  the  prelude  to  something  more  serious.  Two  thousand  sol- 
diers, with  field  artillery,  embarked  in  boats,  and  landed  under  cover 
of  the  shipping  on  a  north-eastern  point  of  the  Charles  Town  pe- 
ninsula. They  were  under  the  command  of  major-general  Howe 
Prescott  and  his  band  waited  for  their  approach.  The  British 
halted  for  some  time,  expecting  additional  force.  The  Americans 
had  their  rear  protected  by  a  low  stone  wall,  surmounted  with  posts 
and  rails.  The  ground  was  covered  with  mown  grass,  browning 
under  a  hot  midsummer  sun  ;  and  there  was  time  to  interweave  the 
hay  between  the  rails  and  form  a  temporary  shelter.  When  the 
British  troops  went  forth  in  their  boats  from  Boston,  numbers  also 
hurried  from  the  American  camp  at  Cambridge  to  share  the  dangers 
of  their  comrades.  Howe's  reinforcements  at  length  arrived. 
Before  they  advanced  to  attack  the  irregular  force  that  had  made 
such  a  bold  show  of  defiance,  Charles  Town,  a  mass  of  wooden 
buildings,  was  set  on  fire  by  a  bombardment  from  Copp's  Hill,  and 
from  the  ships  of  war.  Between  two  and  three  o'clock  the  British, 
under  the  command  of  General  Pigot,  advanced  up  the  hill  steadily 
in  line,  to  attack  the  redoubt.  Prescott  had  commanded  his  men 
not  to  fire  till  the  British  were  within  eight  or  ten  rods.  When  he 
gave  the  word,  there  was  one  simultaneous  discharge  from  the 
VOL.  VI.— 12 


178  HISTORY   OF    ENGLAND. 

muskets  and  fowling-pieces  of  the  skilful  marksmen.  The  front 
rank  of  the  British  was  swept  away.  The  rear  ranks  advanced  to 
meet  another  discharge  equally  fatal.  The  whole  line  staggered, 
and  retreated  down  the  hill.  From  another  point  Howe  led  up  his 
men  to  attack  the  fence.  They  were  met  by  a  volley,  and  fell  back 
in  confusion.  Their  officers  rallied  those  who  had  retreated ;  and 
again  the  columns  advanced  upon  the  redoubt  and  the  grass-woven 
rails.  There  was  the  same  carnage  as  before.  Officers  had  fallen 
in  unusual  numbers.  It  was  a  terrible  scene.  The  town  below 
Breed's  Hill  was  furiously  burning.  The  hill  was  covered  with  the 
dead,  "as  thick  as  sheep  in  a  fold."  The  colonists  were  ready  to 
meet  a  third  attack,  when  it  was  discovered  that  their  ammunition 
was  nearly  spent.  This  final  assault  of  the  British  was  conducted 
with  a  better  estimate  of  the  courage  of  their  enemy.  Cannon 
were  brought  up  so  as  to  rake  the  breastwork  of  the  redoubt,  against 
which  all  the  available  force  was  concentrated.  The  fire  from  the 
breastwork  gradually  ceased.  The  redoubt  was  scaled.  Resist- 
ance was  no  longer  possible ;  and  the  Americans  gave  way,  some 
retiring  in  order,  but  most  escaping  as  they  best  might.  There 
was  little  pursuit.  The  British  lost  above  a  thousand  killed  and 
wounded,  of  whom  more  than  eighty  were  officers.  The  American 
loss  was  represented  as  less  than  half  that  of  the  royal  forces. 
General  Gage  wrote  home  to  lord  Dartmouth.  "  The  success, 
which  was  very  necessary  in  our  present  condition,  cost  us  dear. 
....  The  trials  we  have  had  show  the  rebels  are  not  the  despica- 
ble rabble  too  many  have  supposed  them  to  be." 

Within  a  week  after  the  arrival  of  Washington  at  the  camp  at 
Cambridge,  he  had  employed  all  his  energies  to  place  his  troops  in 
a  position  of  security.  The  British  were  now  entrenching  on 
Bunker's  Hill,  where  the  bulk  of  their  army,  commanded  by  gen- 
eral Howe,  were  encamped.  Within  half  a  mile  of  the  British 
camp  the  Americans  had  thrown  up  entrenchments  on  Winter  Hill 
and  Prospect  Hill ;  and  there  were  other  strong  works  at  weak 
points.  In  his  letter  to  Congress  detailing  these  circumstances, 
Washington  says,  "  considering  the  great  extent  pf  line,  and  the 
nature  of  the  ground,  we  are  as  well  secured  as  could  be  expected  in 
so  short  a  time,  and  with  the  disadvantages  we  labour  under.  These 
consist  in  a  want  of  engineers  to  construct  proper  works  and  direct 
the  men,  a  want  of  tools,  and  a  sufficient  number  of  men  to  man 
the  works  in  case  of  attack."  Nevertheless,  the  council  of  war 
had  determined  to  hold  and  defend  these  works  as  long  as  possi- 
ble. Under  such  difficulties,  it  is  easy  to  conceive  the  arduous 
task  that  was  imposed  upon  the  commander  of  a  body  of  undiscip- 


PUBLIC    OPINION    IN    ENGLAND.  179 

lined  men,  imperfectly  armed  and  wanting  ammunition.  He  had 
to  contend  also  against  the  constant  solicitations  of  the  Assembly 
of  Massachusetts  to  send  portions  of  his  force  upon  detached  ser- 
vices. These  he  steadily  resisted;  and,  concentrating  his  army,  was 
enabled  to  continue  the  blockade  of  Boston  through  the  autumn 
and  winter. 

Public  opinion  in  Great  Britain,  on  what  had  now  become  a  war 
with 'America,  found  its  expression  in  the  usual  form  of  Addresses 
to  the  throne.  The  majority  of  these  Addresses  went  to  urge  a 
vigorous  prosecution  of  coercive  measures  against  rebellious  sub- 
jects. On  the  23rd  of  August,  the  king  issued  a  proclamation  for 
the  suppression  of  rebellion  and  sedition  in  America,  and  forbid- 
ding assistance  and  traitorous  correspondence  with  the  rebels.  In 
the  City,  Wilkes  being  lord-mayor,  the  corporate  authorities  did 
not  join  the  procession  of  heralds  when  the  proclamation  was  read 
at  the  Royal  exchange.  On  the  other  hand,  Manchester  and  many 
trading  towns  sent  up  loyal  Addresses  for  the  prosecution  of  the 
war.  "  The  Addresses  must  have  been  dearly  bought,"  says  Wai- 
pole.  *  The  king  appears  to  have  made  a  very  sensible  estimate 
of  the  value  of  these  productions.  He  writes  to  lord  North,  on 
the  roth  of  September,  "  Address  from  Manchester  most  dutiful 
and  affectionate.  As  you  wish  the  spirit  to  be  encouraged  I  have 
no  objection ;  though  I  know  from  fatal  experience  that  they  will 
produce  counter  Petitions."  Parliament  met  on  the  a6th  of  Octo- 
ber. The  encouragement  which  the  ministry  had  given  to  "  the 
spirit  "  of  hostility  was  now  to  exhibit  its  fruits  in  the  royal  Speech. 
Conciliation  was  to  be  cast  to  the  winds.  The  strongest  words  in 
the  vocabulary  were  selected  to  terrify  the  men  to  whom  the  British 
bayonet  brought  no  terror.  "  Desperate  conspiracy  " — "  rebellious 
war" — were  to  be  put  an  end  to  by  "decisive  exertions."  The 
"  unhappy  and  deluded  multitude  "  were  not  only  to  be  subdued  by 
the  naval  and  military  armaments  of  their  mother-country,  but  his 
majesty  did  not  hesitate  to  inform  his  Parliament  that  he  had  con- 
descended to  implore  the  aid  of  other  countries  in  this  work :  "  I 
have  the  satisfaction  to  inform  you  that  I  have  received  the  most 
friendly  offers  of  foreign  assistance."  Hessians  were  indeed  lev- 
ied ;  and  Hanoverians  received  British  pay.  But  the  king  was 
disappointed  in  some  of  his  overtures  to  great  powers.  He 
writes  to  lord  North,  only  ten  days  after  this  boast  of  foreign  aid: 
"  The  answer  of  the  empress  of  Russia  to  my  letter  is  a  clever 
refusal,  not  in  so  genteel  a  manner  as  I  should  have  thought  might 
have  been  expected  from  her.  She  has  not  had  the  civility  to  an- 

*  "  Last  Journals,"  vol.  i.  p.  502. 


l8o  HISTORY   OF   ENGLAND. 

swer  me  in  her  own  hand."  As  might  be  expected,  the  parliament- 
ary majorities  in  support  of  the  views  of  the  Court  were  very 
large.  An  amendment  to  the  Address  on  the  first  night  of  the 
session  was  rejected  by  a  majority  of  forty  in  the  House  of  Lords ; 
by  a  majority  of  a  hundred  and  seventy  in  the  House  of  Commons. 
The  duke  of  Grafton,  after  voting  with  the  minority,  resigned  his 
office  of  Privy  Seal.  Two  months  before  the  meeting  of  Parlia- 
ment he  had  pressed  upon  lord  North  the  necessity  of  conciliation, 
but  had  received  no  reply  except  a  draft  of  the  king's  speech. 
When  the  duke  waited  upon  the  king  to  resign,  his  majesty  enter- 
ed upon  a  discussion  of  this  most  grave  subject :  "  He  informed 
me  that  a  large  body  of  German  troops  were  to  join  our  forces ; 
and  appeared  astonished  when  I  answered  earnestly  that  his  majesty 
would  find  too  late  that  twice  that  number  would  only  increase 
the  disgrace,  and  never  effect  his  purpose."  *  Lord  Dartmouth 
succeeded  the  duke  of  Grafton  as  Privy  Seal ;  and  lord  George 
Germaine  (Sackville)  became  Secretary  of  State.  In  spite  of  the 
disgrace  of  Minden,  the  military  experience  of  the  clever  Secretary 
was  now  to  conduct  the  war  with  the  Colonies.  General  Gage  had 
been  previously  called  home,  and  the  chief  command  left  with  gen- 
eral Howe. 

The  king,  before  the  opening  of  the  session,  said  to  lord  North, 
"  I  am  fighting  the  battle  of  the  legislature,  therefore  have  a  right 
to  expect  an  almost  unanimous  support.  After  a  ministerial  tri- 
umph on  the  ist  of  November,  his  majesty  wrote  to  express  his 
hope  that  the  "  very  handsome  majority  would  have  the  effect  of 
shortening  the  debates.  The  House  cannot  possibly  hear  the 
same  speeches  frequently  repeated,  or  the  House  of  Commons 
must  be  composed  of  more  politeness  than  formerly."  It  was  dif- 
ficult to  treat  this  great  question  with  any  novelty  of  argument. 
The  controversy  had  gone  out  of  the  region  of  argument  into  that 
of  brute  force.  Nevertheless,  in  spite  of  the  sanguinary  conflict 
of  the  i  yth  of  June,  the  Congress  assembled  at  Philadelphia  had 
on  the  8th  of  July  confided  to  Richard  Penn,  governor  of  Pennsyl- 
vania, a  petition  to  the  king,  to  be  presented  on  his  arrival  in  Eng- 
land. The  petition,  according  to  Mr.  Jefferson,  was  adopted 
merely  to  please  its  mover,  Mr.  Dickinson;  but  "the  disgust 
against  its  humility  was  general."  This  document,  denominated 
the  Olive  Branch,  was  delivered  to  lord  Dartmouth  on  the  ist  of 
September,  and  in  three  days,  Penn  and  his  companion,  Arthur 
Lee,  were  informed  by  letter  that  no  answer  would  be  given  to  it. 
This  contemptuous  rejection  of  the  humble  petition  of  Congress 

*  MS.  Memoirs. 


MR.    PENN    EXAMINED   IN   THE    HOUSE   OF   LORDS.         l5l 

went  upon  the  ground  that  the  body  petitioning  had  no  legal  exist- 
ence. The  Americans, — who  knew  that  the  deputies  of  thirteen 
States,  who  signed  the  petition,  were  real  representatives  of  the 
opinions  of  the  majority  of  the  people, — from  the  time  of  that  re- 
jection of  their  last  humble  effort  at  pacification  held  that  to  Brit- 
ish councils,  and  not  to  American,  all  the  bloodshed  and  guilt  of 
the  war  were  to  be  ascribed.  The  British  government  considered, 
or  professed  to  consider,  that  with  "vague  expressions  of  attach- 
ment to  the  parent  state,"  the  rebellious  war  was  "manifestly  car- 
ried on  for  the  purpose  of  establishing  an  independent  empire."  * 
The  Americans  maintained,  up  to  that  period,  that  they  entertained 
no  such  purpose.  In  the  House  of  Lords,  on  the  7th  of  November, 
the  petition  of  the  Congress  to  the  king  was  to  be  taken  into  con- 
sideration, and  having  been  read,  the  duke  of  Richmond  moved 
that  Mr.  Penn  be  examined.  That  examination,  which  took  place 
on  the  loth,  was  a  very  important  testimony  to  the  state  of  opin- 
ion in  the  Colonies. 

The  questions  proposed  to  Mr.  Penn,  as  he  stood  at  the  bar  of 
the  House  of  Lords,  were  chiefly  those  of  the  duke  of  Richmond 
and  other  supporters  of  the  opposition  ;  but  he  was  subjected  to  a 
cross-examination  by  the  earl  of  Sandwich  and  others  of  the  min- 
istry. He  had  resided  four  years  in  America ;  he  was  two  years 
in  the  government  of  Pennsylvania.  He  thought  the  members  of 
Congress  were  men  of  character,  and  capable  of  conveying  the 
sense  of  America ;  they  undoubtedly  convey  the  sense  of  the 
provinces  they  represent,  and  he  firmly  believed  the  provinces 
would  be  governed  by  their  decisions.  He  was  acquainted  with 
almost  all  the  members  of  the  Congress.  "  Do  you  think,"  he  was 
asked,  that  "  they  levy  and  carry  on  this  war  for  the  purpose  of 
establishing  an  independent  empire  ?  "  His  answer  was,  "  I  think 
they  do  not  carry  on  the  war  for  independency ;  I  never  heard 
them  breathe  sentiments  of  that  nature."  He  was  asked,  "  For 
what  purpose  do  you  believe  they  have  taken  up  arms  ? "  Brief 
and  emphatic  was  his  answer  :  "  For  the  defence  of  their  liber- 
ties." At  the  close  of  his  examination  Mr.  Penn  distinctly  stated 
that  the  most  opulent  inhabitants  of  the  American  provinces  would 
prefer  freedom  under  this  country  to  any  other  state  of  freedom; 
and  that  while  supporting  the  measures  of  the  Congress  they 
wished  at  the  same  time  a  reconciliation  with  Great  Britain. f  The 
opinions  of  Mr.  Penn  on  the  subject  of  independence  have  been 
confirmed  by  those  held  by  Washington,  Madison,  Franklin,  and 

*  King's  Speech,  October  26. 

t  "  Parliamentary  Debates,"  vol.  xviii.  cols.  911  to  961. 


182  HISTORY   OF    ENGLAND. 

Jefferson,  before  the  commencement  of  hostilities.  Even  after 
that  commencement  Jefferson  affirms  that  the  possibility  of  sepa- 
ration was  "  contemplated  with  affliction  by  all."  Mr.  Jay  marks 
more  distinctly  the  period  when  the  notion  of  separation  began  to 
be  received :  "  Until  after  the  second  petition  of  Congress  in 
1775,  I  never  did  hear  an  American  of  any  class,  or  of  any  descrip- 
tion, express  a  wish  for  the  independence  of  the  colonies.  .  .  . 
Our  country  was  prompted  and  impelled  to  independence  by  ne- 
cessity and  not  by  choice." 

A  motion  that  the  petition  of  Congress  brought  by  Mr.  Penn 
afforded  grounds  for  conciliation  was  rejected  by  an  overwhelming 
majority.  In  vain  Shelburne  and  Grafton  in  the  Lords, — in  vain 
Burke,  Fox,  and  Barre  in  the  Commons, — supported  propositions 
"  for  composing  the  present  troubles  in  America."  The  govern- 
ment carried  its  measures  with  a  high  hand.  Chatham  was  again 
incapable  through  sickness  of  taking  part  in  the  debates  of  this 
solemn  period.  Lord  North's  Prohibitory  Bill,  forbidding  any 
commerce  with  the  thirteen  American  Colonies,  was  carried,  in  all 
its  severe  enactments,  without  Chatham's  voice  being  heard  to  re- 
prove Mansfield  for  hounding  on  the  people  to  the  extremities  of 
war.  But  Chatham  emphatically  manifested  the  consistency  of 
his  opinions.  General  Carleton,  the  commander  in  Canada,  had 
sent  home  lord  Pitt,  Chatham's  eldest  son,  with  despatches ;  and 
in  a  letter  to  the  father  had  expressed  the  most  favourable  opinion 
of  his  aide-de-camp.  The  countess  of  Chatham  writes  to  general 
Carleton  to  convey  the  gratitude  of  her  husband  ;  who,  from  ill 
health,  was  unable  fully  to  testify  his  sense  of  obligation  :  "  Feel- 
ing all  this,  sir,  as  lord  Chatham  does,  you  will  tell  yourself  with 
what  concern  he  communicates  to  you  a  step  that,  from  his  fixed 
opinion  with  regard  to  the  continuance  of  the  unhappy  war  with 
our  fellow-subjects  of  America,  he  has  found  it  necessary  to  take. 
It  is  that  of  withdrawing  his  son  from  such  a  service."  * 

General  Carleton,  in  his  letter  to  Chatham  from  Montreal,  in 
September,  says,  of  lord  Pitt,  "  I  would  it  had  been  in  my  power 
to  send  him  with  more  agreeable  news  for  the  public."  The  Con- 
gress had  sanctioned  an  invasion  of  Canada,  under  the  command 
of  general  Montgomery.  Benedict  Arnold  had  received  a  detach- 
ment of  a  thousand  men  from  Washington's  army  in  Massachu- 
setts ;  and  Ethan  Allen  was  ready  for  a  repetition  of  some  such 
dashing  exploit  as  his  capture  of  Ticonderoga.  Allen  was  march- 
ing to  attack  Montreal  when  he  fell  in  with  the  British  troops : 
was  made  prisoner ;  and  was  sent  to  England.  Arnold,  having 

*  "  Chatham  Correspondence,"  vol.  iv.  p.  420- 


CANADA.  183 

surmounted  great  difficulties  in  penetrating  through  a  country  of 
woods  and  rocks, — his  men  sometimes  wading  through  rapid 
rivers,  and  sometimes  carrying  their  boats  over  barren  heights — 
appeared  suddenly  before  Quebec.  Arnold  was  repulsed  by 
colonel  Maclean,  who  came  in  time  to  save  the  capital  of  Canada. 
But  Montgomery  was  approaching  with  a  larger  force.  Carleton, 
with  energetic  resolution,  set  off  from  Montreal  disguised  as  a 
fisherman  ;  and,  passing  in  a  whale-boat  through  the  American 
flotilla  on  the  St.  Lawrence,  got  into  Quebec,  and  took  the  com- 
mand.  On  the  3ist  of  December  the  united  forces  of  Montgomery 
and  Arnold  climbed  the  heights  of  Abraham,  and  attacked  the  city. 
They  were  met  by  a  formidable  resistance.  Montgomery  was 
killed,  and  Arnold  severely  wounded.  But  the  Americans  block- 
aded Quebec  throughout  the  winter. 

From  July,  1775,  to  February,  1 776,  Washington  had  continued 
the  blockade  of  Boston.  He  was  tired  of  what  he  describes  as 
the  irksomeness  of  his  situation.  The  frost  had  formed  some 
pretty  strong  ice  over  the  river  Charles,  and  he  contemplated  an 
assault  upon  the  town.*  He  was  over-ruled  by  a  council  of  war. 
Meanwhile  the  British  army,  in  camp  round  Boston,  was  suffering 
great  privations  and  miseries.  The  small-pox  had  broken  out 
among  the  troops.  The  want  of  fresh  provisions  and  of  fuel  made 
sickness  and  cold  more  fatal.  In  March,  Washington  had  taken 
possession  of  Dorchester  Heights,  and  was  about  to  secure  other 
points,  from  which  measures  he  hoped  it  would  be  in  his  power 
"  to  force  the  ministerial  troops  to  an  attack,  or  to  dispose  of  them 
in  some  way  that  will  be  of  advantage  to  us."  f  No  attack  was 
made  by  the  British  ;  and  on  the  iQthof  March,  Washington  wrote 
to  the  President  of  Congress,  "  It  is  with  the  greatest  pleasure  I 
inform  you,  that  on  Sunday  last,  the  I7th  instant,  about  nine 
o'clock  in  the  forenoon,  the  ministerial  army  evacuated  the  town 
of  Boston,  and  that  the  forces  of  the  United  Colonies  are  now  in 
possession  thereof."  General  Howe  sailed  for  Halifax  to  wait  for 
reinforcements.  Washington  and  his  army  marched  for  New 
York ;  against  which  city  he  felt  assured  that  the  British  arms 
would  be  next  directed.  The  Congress  ordered  a  gold  medal  to 
be  struck  to  commemorate  the  evacuation  of  Boston. 

On  the  2oth  of  February,  1776,  lord  North  presented  copies  of 
treaties  between  Great  Britain  and  the  duke  of  Brunswick,  the 
landgrave  of  Hesse  Cassel,  and  the  count  of  Hanau,  for  the  hire 
of  troops.  The  prime  minister  said,  "  that  the  force  which  this 
measure  would  enable  us  to  send  to  America  would  be  such  as.  in 

*  "  Despatch  to  Congress,"  February  18.  t  Ibid.,  February  26. 


184  HISTORY   OF   ENGLAND. 

all  human  probability,  must  compel  that  country  to  agree  to  terms 
of  submission,  perhaps  without  any  further  effusion  of  blood.'" 
The  petty  German  princes  made  a  hard  bargain  with  the  British 
government.  Mr.  Hartley,  the  friend  of  Franklin,  said  with  a  clear 
prospect  of  the  future,  "  When  foreign  powers  are  once  introduced 
in  this  dispute,  all  possibility  of  reconciliation  and  return  to  our 
former  connection  is  totally  cut  off.  You  have  given  a  justification 
to  the  Americans  by  your  example,,  if  they  call  in  the  assistance  of 
foreign  powers."  The  measure  was  supported  by  a  majority  of  a 
hundred  and  fifty-four.  On  the  3rd  of  March,  Silas  Deane  was 
dispatched  by  the  Congress  to  Paris,  with  instructions  to  inform 
the  French  minister  for  foreign  affairs,  that  in  the  event  of  the 
probable  separation  from  Great  Britain,  France  would  be  regarded 
as  the  power  whose  friendship  it  would  be  fittest  for  the  United 
Provinces  of  America  to  obtain  and  cultivate. 

At  the  beginning  of  1776,  the  Americans  had  been  defeated  by 
general  Carleton,  and  had  retired  from  Quebec.  In  other  engage- 
ments they  had  been  equally  unsuccessful ;  and  Canada,  in  the 
summer  of  that  year,  was  in  the  unmolested  possession  of  the 
king's  troops.  In  June,  general  Howe  had  left  Halifax,  and  had 
landed  his  forces  on  Staten  Island.  In  July,  admiral  lord  Howe 
arrived  with  reinforcements  from  England.  The  two  brothers  had 
been  authorised,  as  Commissioners,  to  receive  the  submission  of 
insurgent  colonists,  to  grant  pardons,  and  inquire  into  grievances. 
At  an  earlier  period  the  appointment  of  these  Commissioners,  who 
were  men  of  sense  and  moderation,  might  have  had  beneficial 
results.  But  the  state  of  feeling  amongst  the  colonists  was  hurry- 
ing onward  that  measure  of  separation,  which  the  most  sagacious 
saw  would  be  the  inevitable  result  of  an  obstinate  assertion  of 
authority  opposed  to  an  ardent  desire  for  independence — a  desire 
at  first  timidly  avowed  by  a  few,  dreaded  by  most,  and  at  last 
matured  into  a  sentiment  which  it  would  have  been  dangerous  in 
the  minority  to  oppose. 

Whilst  the  British  forces  under  Howe  were  taking  a  position 
on  Staten  Island,  and  the  American,  under  Washington,  were  col- 
lecting on  Long  Island  and  in  the  city  of  New  York,  each  prepar- 
ing for  hostilities,  the  Congress  at  Philadelphia  took  a  decisive 
resolution  which  gave  to  the  war  a  character  somewhat  different 
from  an  insurrection.  In  the  Convention  of  Virginia  the  delegates 
to  Congress  had  been  instructed  to  propose  that  the  Colonies 
should  declare  themselves  independent  of  Great  Britain.  The  pro- 
posal was  submitted  to  the  Congress  at  the  beginning  of  June,  and 
was  debated  for  some  days  with  slight  prospect  of  unanimity.  Six 


DECLARATION    OF    INDEPENDENCE.  185 

of  the  Colonies  were  opposed  to  the  immediate  adoption  of  such  a 
measure.  Nevertheless,  a  committee  of  five  was  appointed  to 
prepare  a  manifesto  embodying  this  principle.  Jefferson  was 
selected  to  make  the  draught  of  a  Declaration  of  Independence. 
It  was  submitted  and  discussed  on  the  1st  of  July  when  the  dele- 
gates of  Pennsylvania  and  South  Carolina  voted  against  it.  Those 
of  Delaware  were  divided  in  opinion ;  and  those  of  New  York 
withdrew.  On  the  next  day,  by  a  compromise  and  a  change  of 
delegates,  three  of  the  dissentient  provinces  gave  their  adhesion 
to  the  majority.  -The  draught  prepared  by  Jefferson  was  discussed 
during  sittings  of  three  days ;  and  it  was  finally  agreed  to  by  the 
members  present  of  the  twelve  States,  with  the  exception  of  one. 
The  delegates  from  New  York  were  subsequently  impowered  to 
give  their  assent.  Thus,  on  the  4th  of  July,  was  completed  what 
has  been  not  unjustly  termed  "  the  most  memorable  public  docu- 
ment which  history  records."  *  We  give  the  document  in  a  note 
to  this  chapter.  The  long  catalogue  of  "  injuries  and  usurpations, 
all  having  in  direct  object  the  establishment  of  an  absolute  tyr- 
anny," must  be  regarded,  in  many  particulars,  rather  as  over- 
strained inferences  from  impolitic  acts,  than  as  evidences  of  delib- 
erate oppression.  Like  most  of  the  manifestoes  in  any  great  con- 
flict of  principles,  these  charges  must  be  viewed  rather  as  a  demon- 
stration of  temporary  feeling  than  as  incontrovertible  truths.  But 
the  opening  paragraphs  of  the  Declaration  are  very  remarkable  as 
an  exposition  of  doctrines  which  had  a  different  origin  than  the 
Anglo-Saxon  institutions  upon  which  the  American  Colonies  were 
founded.  The  deputies  of  Congress  say,  "We  hold  these  truths 
to  be  self-evident ;  that  all  men  are  created  equal;  that  they  are 
endowed  by  their  Creator  with  certain  inalienable  rights ;  that 
among  these  are  life,  liberty,  and  the  pursuit  of  happiness  ;  that  to 
secure  these  rights,  governments  are  instituted  among  men,  deriv- 
ing their  just  powers  from  the  consent  of  the  governed  ;  that  when, 
ever  any  form  of  government  becomes  destructive  of  these  ends, 
it  is  the  right  of  the  people  to  alter  or  abolish  it,  and  to  institute 
new  government,  laying  its  foundation  on  such  principles,  and 
organizing  its  powers  in  such  form,  as  to  them  shall  seem  most 
likely  to  effect  their  safety  and  their  happiness."  These  were  not 
American  ideas.  They  were  based  upon  the  "  Social  Contract "  of 
Rousseau,  and  reflected  the  popular  philosophy  which  was  destined 
to  produce  a  far  mightier  revolution  than  that  of  the  separation  of 
America  from  the  British  Crown.  In  France,  where  inalienable 
rights — life,  liberty,  and  the  pursuit  of  happiness — were  too  fre- 

*  Tucker — "  Life  of  Jefferson,"  vol.  i.  p.  90. 


1 86  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

quently  trampled  upon  by  the  governing  classes,  the  American 
Declaration  of  Independence  was  hailed  as  a  beautiful  illustration 
of  that  theory  of  liberty  and  equality  which  was  delightful  to  specu- 
late upon  in  the  Parisian  salons — a  theory  calling  forth  a  delicious 
enthusiasm,  provided  it  could  be  kept  at  a  safe  distance.  If  we 
look  back  with  wonder  and  pity  upon  the  obstinacy  of  the  British 
government  in  the  attempt  to  coerce  the  Americans  into  submission, 
we  may  regard  as  a  stronger  manifestation  of  political  blindness, 
the  support  which  the  French  government  gave  to  that  practical 
assertion  of  republican  freedom,  which  was  to  convert  the  ideal 
democracy  of  which  courtly  aristocrats  delighted  to  talk,  into  the 
terrible  reality  in  which  a  long-suffering  people  roused  themselves 
to  act,  in  a  fearful  revenge  of  centuries  of  misrule. 


THE   DECLARATION. 


1*7 


A  DECLARATION  BY  THE  REPRESENTATIVES  OF 
THE  UNITED  STATES  OF  AMERICA,  IN  GEN- 
ERAL CONGRESS  ASSEMBLED. 


WHEN,  in  the  course  of  human  events,  it  becomes  necessary  for  one  people  to  dissolve 
the  political  bands  which  have  connected  them  with  another,  and  to  assume  among  the 
powers  of  the  earth  the  separate  and  equal  station  to  which  the  laws  of  nature  and  of  na- 
ture's God  entitle  them,  a  decent  respect  to  the  opinions  of  mankind  requires  that  they 
should  declare  the  causes  which  impel  them  to  the  separation. 

We  hold  these  truths  to  be  self-evident :  that  all  men  are  created  equal  ;  that  they  are 
endowed  by  their  Creator  with  certain  inalienable  rights  ;  that  among  these  are  life,  lib- 
erty, and  the  pursuit  of  happiness  ;  that  to  secure  these  rights,  governments  are  instituted 
among  men,  deriving  their  just  powers  from  the  consent  of  the  governed;  that  whenever 
any  form  of  government  becomes  destructive  of  these  ends,  it  is  the  right  of  the  people  to 
alter  or  abolish  it,  and  to  institute  new  government,  laying  its  foundation  on  such  princi- 
ples, and  organizing  its  powers  in  such  form,  as  to  them  shall  seem  most  likely  to  effect 
their  safety  and  happiness.  Prudence,  indeed,  will  dictate  that  governments  long  estab- 
lished should  not  be  changed  for  light  and  transient  causes;  and  accordingly  all  experi- 
ence hath  shown  that  mankind  are  more  disposed  to  suffer  while  evils  are  sufferable,  than 
to  right  themselves  by  abolishing  the  forms  to  which  they  are  accustomed.  But  when  a 
long  train  of  abuses  and  usurpations  pursuing  in  variably,  the  same  object,  evinces  a  design 
to  reduce  them  under  absolute  despotism,  it  is  their  right,  it  is  their  duty,  to  throw  off 
such  government,  and  to  provide  new  guards  for  their  future  security.  Such  has  been  the 
patient  sufferance  of  these  colonies  ;  and  such  is  now  the  necessity  which  constrains  them 
to  alter  their  former  systems  of  government.  The  history  of  the  present  King  of  Great 
Britain  is  a  history  of  repeated  injuries  and  usurpations,  all  having  in  direct  object  the  es- 
tablishment of  an  absolute  tyranny  over  these  states.  To  prove  this,  let  facts  be  submit- 
ted to  a  candid  world. 

He  has  refused  his  assent  to  laws  the  most  wholesome  and  necessary  for  the  public 
good. 

He  has  forbidden  his  governors  to  pass  laws  of  immediate  and  pressing  importance, 
unless  suspended  in  their  operation  till  his  assent  should  be  obtained  ;  and,  when  so  sus- 
pended, he  has  utterly  neglected  to  attend  to  them. 

He  has  refused  to  pass  other  laws  for  the  accommodation  of  large  districts  of  people, 
unless  those  people  would  relinquish  the  right  of  representation  in  the  legislature,  a  right 
inestimable  to  them,  and  formidable  to  tyrants  only. 

He  has  called  together  legislative  bodies  at  places  unusual,  uncomfortable,  and  distant 
from  the  depository  of  their  public  records,  for  the  sole  purpose  of  fatiguing  them  into 
compliance  with  his  measures. 

He  has  dissolved  representative  houses  repeatedly  for  opposing  with  manly  firmness 
his  invasions  on  the  rights  of  the  people. 

He  has  refused  for  a  long  time  after  such  dissolutions  to  cause  others  to  be  elected, 
whereby  the  legislative  powers,  incapable  of  annihilation,  have  returned  to  the  people  at 
large  for  their  exercise,  the  state  remaining,  in  the  meantime,  exposed  to  all  the  dangers 
of  invasion  from  without  and  convulsions  within. 

He  has  endeavoured  to  prevent  the  population  of  these  states ;  for  that  purpose  ob- 
structing the  laws  for  naturalization  of  foreigners,  refusing  to  pass  others  to  encourage 
their  migrations  hither,  and  raising  the  conditions  of  new  appropriations  of  lands. 

He  has  obstructed  the  administration  of  justice,  by  refusing  his  assent  to  laws  for  es- 
tablishing judiciary  powers. 

He  has  made  judges  dependent  on  his  will  alone  for  the  tenure  of  their  offices  and  the 
amount  and  payment  of  their  salaries. 

He  has  erected  a  multitude  of  new  offices,  and  sent  hither  swarms  of  new  officers  to 
harass  our  people  and  eat  out  their  substance. 


188  HISTORY   OF   ENGLAND. 

He  has  kept  among  us  in  times  of  peace  standing  armies  without  the  consent  of  our 
legislatures. 

He  has  affected  to  render  the  military  independent  of,  and  superior  to,  the  civil 
power. 

He  has  combined  with  others  to  subject  us  to  a  jurisdiction  foreign  to  our  constitutions 
and  unacknowledged  by  our  laws,  giving  his  assent  to  their  acts  of  pretended  legislation 
for  quartering  large  bodies  of  armed  troops  among  us  ;  for  protecting  them  by  a  mock  trial 
from  punishment  for  any  murders  which  they  should  commit  on  the  inhabitants  of  these 
states  ;  for  cutting  off  our  trade  with  all  parts  of  the  world ;  for  imposing  taxes  on  us 
without  our  consent ;  for  depriving  us  in  many  cases  of  the  benefits  of  trial  by  jury  ;  for 
transporting  us  beyond  seas  to  be  tried  for  pretended  offences  ;  for  abolishing  the  free  sys- 
tem of  English  laws  in  a  neighbouring  province,  establishing  therein  an  arbitrary  govern- 
ment, and  enlarging  its  boundaries,  so  as  to  render  it  at  once  an  example  and  fit  instru- 
ment for  introducing  the  same  absolute  rule  into  these  colonies ;  for  taking  away  our 
charters,  abolishing  our  most  valuable  laws,  and  altering  fundamentally  the  forms  of  our 
governments  ;  for  suspending  our  own  legislatures,  and  declaring  themselves  invested 
with  power  to  legislate  for  us  in  all  cases  whatsoever. 

He  has  abdicated  government  here  by  declaring  us  out  of  his  protection  and  waging 
war  against  us. 

He  has  plundered  our  seas,  ravaged  our  coasts,  burnt  our  towns,  and  destroyed  the 
lives  of  our  people. 

He  is  at  this  time  transporting  large  armies  of  foreign  mercenaries  to  complete  the 
works  of  death,  desolation,  and  tyranny  already  begun  with  circumstances  of  cruelty  and 
perfidy  scarcely  paralleled  in  the  most  barbarous  ages,  and  totally  unworthy  the  head  of  a 
civilized  nation. 

He  has  constrained  our  fellow  citizens  taken  captive  on  the  high  seas  to  bear  arms 
against  their  country,  to  become  the  executioners  of  their  friends  and  brethren,  or  to  fall 
themselves  by  their  hands. 

He  has  excited  domestic  insurrections  among  us,  and  has  endeavoured  to  bring  on  the 
inhabitants  of  our  frontiers  the  merciless  Indian  savages,  whose  known  rule  of  warfare  is 
an  undistinguished  destruction  of  all  ages,  sexes,  and  conditions. 

In  every  stage  of  these  oppressions  we  have  petitioned  for  redress  in  the  most  humble 
terms  :  our  repeated  addresses  have  been  answered  only  by  repeated  injuries. 

A  prince  whose  character  is  thus  marked  by  every  act  which  may  define  a  tyrant  is  un- 
fit to  be  the  ruler  of  a  free  people. 

Nor  have  we  been  wanting  in  attentions  to  our  British  brethren.  We  have  warned 
them  from  time  to  time  of  attempts  by  their  legislature  to  extend  an  unwarrantable  juris- 
diction over  us.  We  have  reminded  them  of  the  circumstances  of  our  emigration  and  set- 
tlement here,  we  have  appealed  to  their  native  justice  and  magnanimity,  and  we  have  con- 
jured them  by  the  ties  of  our  common  kindred  to  disavow  these  usurpations  which  would 
inevitably  interrupt  our  connexion  and  correspondence.  They  too  have  been  deaf  to  the) 
Voice  of  justice  and  of  consanguinity.  We  must  therefore  acquiesce  in  the  necessity  which 
denounces  our  separation,  and  hold  them  as  we  hold  the  rest  of  mankind,  enemies  in  war, 
in  peace  friends. 

We  therefore  the  representatives  of  the  United  States  of  America  in  General  Congress 
assembled,  appealing  to  the  supreme  Judge  of  the  world  for  the  rectitude  of  our  inten- 
tions, do  in  the  name  and  by  the  authority  of  the  good  people  of  these  colonies,  solemnly 
publish  and  declare,  that  these  united  colonies  are,  and  of  right  ought  to  be,  free  and  inde- 
pendent states  ;  that  they  are  absolved  from  all  allegiance  to  the  British  crown,  and  that 
all  political  connexion  between  them  and  the  state  of  Great  Britain  is,  and  ought  to  be, 
totally  dissolved  ;  and  that  as  free  and  independent  states,  they  have  full  power  to  levy 
war,  conclude  peace,  contract  alliances,  establish  commerce,  and  to  do  all  other  acts  and 
things  which  independent  states  may  of  right  do. 

And  for  the  support  of  this  declaration,  with  a  firm  reliance  on  the  protection  of  divine 
providence,  we  mutually  pledge  to  each  other  our  lives,  our  fortunes,  and  our  sacred 
honour. 


LORD    HOWE. 


CHAPTER  XI. 

Lord  Howe,  as  the  British  Commissioner,  addresses  a  letter  to  Washington. — The  letter 
refused. —The  British  on  Long  Island. — Battle  of  Brooklyn. — Washington  retreats. — 
His  exploit  at  Trenton. — His  success  at  Princetown. — Franklin  dispatched  by  the 
Congress  to  Paris. — Underhand  proceedings  of  France. — John  the  Painter,  the  incen- 
diary.— Manning  the  navy. — Defences  of  the  country. — Chatham  appears  again  in 
Parliament. — Steubeu. — LaFayette. — Kosciusko. — Battle  of  the  Brandywine. — The 
British  in  Philadelphia. — Burgoyne's  army  enters  the  United  States  from  Canada.— 
The  convention  of  Saratoga. — Parliament  meets. — Chatham's  speech  on  the  Address. 
— On  the  employment  of  Indians. — Washington  in  winter-quarters  at  Valley  Forge 
— Steuben  re-organizes  the  army. 

THE  first  measures  of  lord  Howe,  upon  his  arrival  oft  New 
York,  were  of  a  conciliatory  nature.  He  arrived  on  the.  I2th  of 
July.  On  the  I4th,  ho  sent  a  flag  on  shore  with  a  letter,  addressed 
"George  Washington,  Esquire."  One  of  Washington's  colonels 
told  the  officer  who  brought  the  letter,  that  there  was  no  such 
person  in  the  American  army.  The  officer  expressed  great 
concern ;  and  nally  went  back,  receiving  as  his  answer,  that  a 
proper  direction  would  obviate  all  difficulties.  Washington  wrote 
to  Congress,  "  1  deemed  it  a  duty  to  my  country  and  my  appoint- 
ment to  insist  upon  that  respect  which,  in  any  other  than  a  public 
view,  I  would  willingly  have  waived."  A  letter  on  the  i6th,  from 
general  Howe,  similarly  addressed,  was  similarly  refused.  The 
British  adjutant-general,  lieutenant-colonel  Paterson,  then  came  to 
Washington's  quarters  to  explain  the  matter.  He  laid  the  letter 
on  the  table,  and  Washington  refused  to  open  it.  The  conversa- 
tion on  both  sides  was  that  of  two  high-minded  gentlemen  ;  but 
Washington  was  firm  in  declining  to  accept  the  direction  of 
"  George  Washington,  Esquire,  &c.,  &c.,  &c.,"  as  a  proper  ad- 
dress to  himself  in  his  public  station.  Colonel  Paterson  wished 
his  visit  to  be  considered  as  the  first  advance  towards  that  accom- 
modation of  the  unhappy  dispute  which  was  the  object  of  the 
appointment  of  Commissioners,  who,  he  said,  had  great  powers. 
Washington  replied  that  he  was  not  invested  with  any  powers  on 
this  subject,  from  those  from  whom  he  derived  his  authority ;  but 
from  what  had  transpired,  it  appeared  that  lord  Howe  and  general 
Howe  were  only  to  grant  pardons  ; — those  who  had  committed  no 
fault  wanted  no  pardon.  Paterson  departed,  having  declined 
Washington's  invitation  to  a  collation.  He  had  expressed  his 


I QO  HISTORY   OF   ENGLAND. 

apprehension  that  an  adherence  to  forms  was  likely  to  obstruct 
business  of  great  moment.  Washington  had  signified  to  Congress 
his  unwillingness  to  sacrifice  essentials  to  punctilio ;  but  it  is  clear 
that  he  thought  the  maintenance  of  his  own  dignity  was  an  essen- 
tial. No  further  attempt  was  made  at  negotiation  with  Wash- 
ington. 

A  large  division  of  the  British  troops,  on  the  22nd  of  August, 
landed  on  Long  Island.  A  portion  of  Washington's  army  was 
stationed  near  Brooklyn,  a  small  town  at  the  western  angle  of  the 
island.  Washington,  with  the  greater  number  of  his  troops,  re- 
mained in  New  York,  an  attack  upon  which  city  was  not  improb- 
able. The  Americans  were  under  the  command  of  general  Put- 
nam ;  the  British,  and  their  Hessian  auxiliaries,  were  under  sir 
William  Howe.  On  the  27th,  was  fought  the  battle  of  Brooklyn, 
in  which  the  Americans  were  defeated  with  great  loss,  and  were 
driven  back  to  their  lines.  But  Howe  did  not  follow  up  his  advan- 
tage ;  and  Washington,  hurrying  from  New  York,  rallied  his  troops, 
and  waited  for  two  days  an  attack  upon  his  position,  which  the 
British  commander  did  not  care  to  risk.  Washington  then  deter- 
mined to  make  no  further  attempt  to  hold  Long  Island;  and  with 
consummate  prudence  and  ability,  favoured  by  a  dense  fog,  em- 
barked his  troops  in  boats,  and  landed  them  with  the  military  stores 
and  artillery  in  safety  at  New  York.  Lord  Cornwallis,  who  had 
sailed  from  Cork  in  February,  with  seven  regiments  of  infantry, 
was  in  the  action  of  Brooklyn,  Two  of  the  American  generals, 
Sullivan  and  Stirling,  were  taken  prisoners.  On  the  I5th  of  Sep- 
tember, Washington  evacuated  New  York.  The  reverses  in  the 
field  were  not  so  dangerous  to  the  cause  of  Independence  as  the 
want  of  discipline  in  the  American  troops.  Their  general  was 
half-despairing,  and  exclaimed,  "  Are  these  the  men  I  am  to  defend 
America  with  ?  "  When  the  British  entered  New  York,  they  were 
received  by  a  large  number  of  the  inhabitants  as  deliverers  from 
the  plunder  and  oppression  of  the  troops  of  the  Congress.  From 
the  heights  of  Haarlem,  about  nine  miles  from  New  York,  where 
Washington  was  some  time  encamped,  he  moved  further  up  the 
country  to  White  Plains.  There  was  a  serious  skirmish  between 
the  two  armies  on  the  28th  of  October ;  but  Howe  was  deterred 
from  following  up  the  retiring  enemy  by  the  apparent  strength  of 
their  lines.  Washington  was  astonished  that  the  British  general 
did  not  attempt  something.  His  own  army  was  so  disorganized 
and  weakened  by  desertions  that  a  vigorous  attack  might  have 
annihilated  his  remnant  of  effective  men.  Fort  Washington  and 
Fort  Lee,  each  situated  on  the  bank  of  the  Hudson,  were  cap- 


RETREATS.  19 1 

turecl  by  tne  British  in  the  middle  of  November.  They  followed 
up  their  success  by  overrunning  Jersey.  Washington  continued  to 
retreat  before  Cornwallis.  Lee,  the  general  who  had  been  directed 
to  join  him,  was  taken  prisoner,  through  his  own  imprudence  in 
lodging  out  of  his  camp. 

The  British  generals  now  thought  they  had  done  enough  foi 
one  campaign.  They  had  an  enemy  to  deal  with  who  had  the  old 
English  spirit  of  not  knowing  when  he  was  beaten.  There  appeared 
no  obstacle  to  the  advance  of  the  royal  army  to  Philadelphia  ;  and 
in  that  apprehension  the  Congress  had  dispersed  to  meet  at  Balti- 
more. But  the  passage  of  the  Delaware  had  been  rendered  im- 
practible  to  the  detachment  under  Cornwallis,  for  Washington  had 
destroyed  the  boats  on  the  river.  Howe  had  directed  that  the  men 
should  go  into  winter  cantonments,  "  the  weather  having  become 
too  severe  to  keep  the  field,"  as  he  wrote  home  on  the  2oth  of 
December,  expressing  his  confidence  that,  from  the  general  sub- 
mission of  the  country  and  the  strength  of  the  advanced  posts,  the 
troops  would  be  in  perfect  security.*  Washington  had  destroyed 
the  boats  by  which  the  British  might  pass  the  Delaware  ;  but  the 
frost  was  setting  in,  and  in  a  few  days  the  British  might  pursue 
their  way  to  Philadelphia  over  the  frozen  river.  He  had  about  five 
thousand  men.  On  the  evening  of  Christmas-day  he  embarked 
about  half  his  forces  on  the  Delaware ;  and  continuing  his  passage 
through  the  night,  impeded  by  floating  ice,  and  struggling  with 
snow-storms,  he  landed  his  men  at  Trenton  at  eight  o'clock  in  the 
morning,  surprised  the  outposts  of  the  Hessians,  and  made  the 
main  body  prisoners,  with  very  slight  loss  on  his  own  side.  •  Wash- 
ington went  back  to  secure  his  prisoners,  and  again  crossed  the 
river,  the  outposts  of  the  British  being  abandoned  without  a  strug- 
gle by  panic-stricken  fugitives.  Cornwallis,  who  had  gone  to  New 
York,  with  the  purpose  of  returning  to  England,  hurried  back  with 
fresh  troops,  and  collected  those  who  had  been  posted  on  the 
Delaware.  Washington,  on  the  approach  of  Cornwallis,  abandoned 
Trenton,  and  established  himself  in  a  strong  position  beyond  the 
river  Assanpink.  It  was  not  his  purpose  to  hazard  a  general 
engagement.  By  a  rapid  and  secret  night  march,  whilst  Cornwallis 
judged  by  the  burning  of  the  watchfires  that  the  enemy  was  before 
him,  Washington  was  far  away  in  the  rear  of  the  British,  and 
reached  Princetown  on  his  road  to  Brunswick.  Here  he  encounter- 
ed three  British  regiments  and  three  troops  of  light  horse  marching 
to  join  Cornwallis.  The  iyth  regiment  cut  its  way  through  the 
American  columns  ;  the  4oth  and  55th  were  driven  back  to  Bruns- 

*  "  Correspondence  of  Cornwallis,"  vol.  :.  p.  25. 


192  HISTORY   OF    ENGLAND. 

wick,  with  the  loss  of  three  hundred  prisoners.  Washington  was 
unable  to  follow  up  his  advantage,  for  his  men  were  exhausted  by 
fatigue  and  hunger.  He  took  up  a  position  on  the  hills  ;  and  his 
well-timed  success  brought  him  large  reinforcements,  with  which 
he  held  Jersey,  which  a  month  before  was  in  the  possession  of  the 
British.  Washington's  second  campaign,  although  marked  by  great 
reverses — some  of  which  the  candid  soldier  attributed  to  his  own 
inexperience — must  have  shown  the  British  commanders  that  they 
were  opposed  by  no  common  man  ;  that  in  courage,  endurance,  and 
vigilance,  this  gentleman  of  Virginia  was  equalled  by  few  whose 
military  training  had  been  more  regular  and  complete.  It  was  clear 
that  Congress  had  found  the  right  man  for  command.  It  was  more 
than  probable  that  if  there  had  been  no  such  man  the  event  of  the 
war  would  have  been  very  different. 

When  lord  Howe  arrived  off  New  York  in  July,  he  addressed  a 
kind  letter  to  Dr.  Franklin  as  "his  worthy  friend,"  to  inform  him 
that  he  was  sent  on  a  mission  which  would  be  explained  by  the 
official  dispatches  that  he  forwarded  at  the  same  time.  Franklin 
replied  in  a  like  spirit  of  former  friendship  ;  but  said,  as  the  dis- 
patches only  showed  that  lord  Howe  was  to  offer  pardon  upon 
submission;  he  was  sure  it  must  give  his  lordship  pain  to  be  sent 
so  far  upon  so  hopeless  a  business.*  In  September,  lord  Howe 
arranged  with  general  Sullivan,  a  prisoner  of  war,  to  proceed  to 
Congress  upon  his  parole,  to  inform  them  that  although  he  could 
not  treat  with  that  Assembly  as  a  body,  he  was  desirous  of  having 
a  conference  with  some  of  the  members.  Franklin,  with  John 
Adams  and  Edward  Rutledge,  had  accordingly  a  meeting  with  lord 
Howe  ;  but  the  conference  was  quickly  broken  off  when  the  British 
Commissioner  was  informed  that  the  United  Colonies  could  only 
treat  for  peace  as  free  and  independent  States.  Franklin  was  now 
dispatched  upon  a  more  hopeful  negotiation.  He  was  to  join  Silas 
Deane  in  Paris ;  and  these  two,  with  Arthur  Lee,  were  appointed 
as  Commissioners  to  take  charge  of  the  American  affairs  in  Europe, 
and  to  endeavour  to  procure  a  treaty  of  alliance  with  the  court  of 
France.  At  the  beginning  of  November  Franklin  left  America. 
On  the  8th  of  December  he  had  landed  in  France,  and  wrote  from 
Nantes  to  the  President  of  Congress.  He  says,  "  I  understand 
that  Mr.  Lee  has  lately  been  at  Paris,  that  Mr.  Deane  is  still  there, 
and  that  an  underhand  supply  is  obtained  from  the  government  of 
two  htfndred  brass  field-pieces,  thirty  thousand  firelocks,  and  some 
other  military  stores,  which  are  now  shipping  for  America,  and  will 

*  These  Letters  are  in  the  "  Annual  Register  ''  for  1777. 


UNDERHAND    PROCEEDINGS   OF   FRANCE.  193 

be  conveyed  by  a  ship  of  war."  *  From  this  period  the  French 
government  is  to  be  traced  in  many  other  "  underhand  "  proceedings 
hostile  to  England.  On  the  3ist  of  October,  in  the  debate  on  the 
Address  at  the  opening  of  the  Session,  lord  North  and  lord  George 
Germaine  expressed  their  reliance  on  the  assurances  of  the  pacific 
intentions  of  France.  Franklin  and  Lee,  early  in  January,  saw  the 
count  de  Vergennes,  the  French  minister  for  foreign  affairs,  who 
received  their  memorial ;  and  told  them  that  the  French  and 
Spanish  courts  would  act  in  perfect  concert.  "  Their  fleets," 
Franklin  writes, "  are  said  to  be  in  fine  order,  manned  and  fit  for 
sea.  The  cry  of  this  nation  is  for  us  ;  but  the  court,  it  is  thought, 
views  an  approaching  war  with  reluctance."  Franklin,  in  Paris, 
was  in  a  singular  position  to  form  a  just  estimate  of  "  the  cry  of 
this  nation."  He  writes  to  a  lady  in  England,  "Figure  to  yourself 
an  old  man,  with  gray  hair  appearing  under  a  martin-fur  cap,  among 
the  powdered  heads  of  Paris."  He  looked  with  wonder  upon  the 
ladies  at  a  ball  in  Nantes,  with  head-dresses  five  lengths  of  the 
face  above  the  top  of  the  forehead.  At  court  the  mode  was  less 
extravagant :  "  We  dined  at  the  duke  de  Rochefoucauld's,  where 
there  were  three  duchesses  and  a  countess,  and  no  heads  higher 
than  a  face  and  a  half."  f  Schlosser,  a  German  historian,  has  de- 
scribed Franklin's  appearance  in  the  Paris  salons  :  "  The  admira- 
tion of  Franklin,  carried  to  a  degree  approaching  folly,  produced  a 
remarkable  effect  on  the  fashionable  circles  of  Paris.  His  dress, 
the  simplicity  of  his  external  appearance,  the  friendly  meekness  of 
the  old  man,  and  the  apparent  humility  of  the  Quaker,  procured 
for  freedom  a  mass  of  votaries  among  the  court  circles,  who  used 
to  be  alarmed  at  its  coarseness  an  unsophisticated  truths. "J 
During  several  years,  when  he  resided  at  Passy,  a  village  about 
three  miles  from  Paris,  the  shrewd  old  man  in  the  fur  cap  was  a 
constant  visitor  in  the  highest  society.  To  his  exertions  is  to  be 
chiefly  attributed  the  eagerness  with  which  the  aristocracy  em- 
braced those  vague  notions  of  freedom  which,  misunderstood  and 
exaggerated,  were  to  become  their  own  destruction. 

In  the  letters  of  Franklin  there  is  no  allusion  to  a  very  re- 
markable series  of  occurrences  in  England  in  which  his  coadjutor, 
Mr.  Silas  Deane,  was  asserted  to  have  been  mixed  up  in  a  man- 
ner disgraceful  to  his  character.  On  the  7th  of  December,  1776, 
the  rope-house  of  the  dockyard  at  Portsmouth  was  burnt  down. 
With  difficulty  the  flames  were  prevented  from  reaching  other 
buildings.  The  fire  was  considered  accidental,  until,  on  the  I5th 

*  Franklin's  Works,  vol.  viii.  p.    191.  t  "  Works,"  vol.  viii.  p.  195  and  197. 

t  Quoted  in  "  Life  of  Steuben,"  p.  89.     New  York.     1859. 

VOL.  VI.— 13  * 


194  HISTORY  OF   ENGLAND. 

of  January,  1777,  a  quantity  of  combustibles  were  found  in  the 
hemp-house  of  the  same  yard.  About  this  period  an  incendiary 
attempt  was  also  made  upon  the  docks  at  Plymouth,  and  then  some 
warehouses  were  set  on  fire  upon  the  quay  at  Bristol,  with  an  evi- 
dent design  to  burn  the  shipping  lying  alongside.  Suspicion  at 
length  fell  upon  a  man  who  had  been  seen  lurking  about  the  dock- 
yard at  Plymouth,  on  the  day  of  the  fire,  who  was  known  to  some 
person  as  John  the  painter.  He  was  apprehended  at  Odiham  early 
in  February  ;  and  having  been  induced  to  confide  in  another 
painter,  who  was  permitted  to  visit  him,  he  at  length  revealed  to 
his  supposed  friend  the  transactions  in  which  he  had  been  engaged. 
The  incendiary's  real  name  was  Aitken;  his  native  place  Edin- 
burgh ;  he  had  been  in  America  three  years,  and  had  returned 
from  France  a  short  time  before  these  fires  broke  out.  In  March 
he  was  brought  to  trial  at  the  Winchester  Assizes,  and  then,  to 
his  surprise,  his  confidential  friend  came  forward  as  evidence 
against  him.  This  suspicious  testimony  was,  however,  confirmed 
by  a  variety  of  circumstances  proved  by  other  witnesses  ;  and 
John  the  Painter  paid  the  penalty  of  his  crimes.  His  own  confes- 
sion, of  which  the  following  is  the  substance,  removed  every  pos- 
sible doubt  of  his  guilt.  After  his  return  from  America  he  followed 
the  trade  of  a  painter  at  Birmingham,  and  also  at  Titchfield,  in 
Hampshire.  Here  he  conceived  the  first  idea  of  setting  fire  to  the 
dockyards.  He  went  to  France,  and  applied  to  Mr.  Silas  Deane, 
who  told  him,  when  the  work  was  done,  he  should  be  rewarded. 
On  his  return  to  England,  and  after  setting  fire  to  the  rope-yard  at 
Portsmouth,  he  went  to  London,  and  waited  on  Dr.  Bancroft,  to 
whom  he  had  a  verbal  recommendation  from  Mr.  Deane ;  but  the 
doctor  gave  him  no  countenance.  He  afterwards  wrote  to  Ban- 
croft, and  the  day  following  met  him  at  the  Salopian  coffee-house, 
and  told  him  he  would  do  all  the  prejudice  he  could  to  this  king- 
dom ;  but  the  doctor  not  approving  of  his  conduct,  he  took  his 
leave,  hoping  that  the  doctor  would  not  inform  against  him,  to 
which  the  doctor  said,  he  did  not  like  to  inform  against  any  man. 
At  Plymouth,  he  twice  attempted  to  set  fire  to  the  dockyard,  and 
twice  reached  the  top  of  the  wall  for  that  purpose  ;  but  the  watch- 
man being  within  hearing,  he  desisted.  He  then  went  to  Bristol, 
where  he  attempted  to  set  fire  to  the  shipping  in  the  harbour,  and 
afterwards  set  fire  to  a  warehouse  in  Quay-lane.  These  details 
are  given  in  the  Annual  Register  for  1777,  so  that  Silas  Deane 
ha.d  ample  opportunity  to  deny  the  charges  under  which  he  la- 
boured.  Dr.  Bancroft,  an  American  by  birth,  was  settled  as  a 
physician  in  London,  and  was  favourably  known  as  a  man  of  science 


JOHN   THE   PAINTER,    THE    INCENDIARY.  195 

and  an  author.  Silas  Deane  was  instructed  by  the  Committee  of 
Secret  Correspondence  of  Congress  to  communicate  with  Dr.  Ban- 
croft, who  could  give  him  a  good  deal  of  information  about  what 
was  going  on  in  England.  He  saw  Deane  in  Paris,  where  he  re- 
mained several  months.  "  He  then  returned  to  London,"  says 
Mr.  Jared  Sparks,  "  and  being  attached  to  the  interests  of  the 
United  States,  he  rendered  some  valuable  assistance  to  the  Ameri- 
can agents  and  ministers  in  Europe."  * 

Great  Britain,  at  this  period,  was  ill-prepared  for  a  naval  war. 
Her  system  of  manning  the  navy  was  as  inefficient  as  it  was  dis- 
graceful to  a  country  calling  itself  free.  And  yet,  like  many  other 
evil  things,  it  was  long  held  essential  to  the  safety  of  the  nation. 
On  the  nth  of  March,  Mr.  Temple  Luttrell  proposed  to  the  House 
of  Commons  a  measure  for  the  more  easy  and  effectual  manning 
of  the  navy.  In  describing  the  horrors  of  impressment,  he  showed 
the  tumults,  fear,  and  confusion  which  arose  in  every  town  and 
village  within  ten  or  twelve  miles  of  a  press-gang.  In  Yorkshire 
the  labourers  were  so  terrified  by  a  press-gang  at  Tadcaster,  that 
they  fled  from  their  work  like  a  covey  of  partridges.  In  the  West 
of  England  the  fishermen  had  deserted  the  coast,  and  their  fami- 
lies were  reduced  to  poverty.  Seamen  had  been  drowned  in  at- 
tempting to  swim  from  their  ships  to  the  shore,  or  were  shot  by 
the  sentinels.  Some  committed  suicide  ;  some  mutilated  them- 
selves. In  the  impress-tenders,  where  captive  seamen  were  thrust 
together,  fevers  and  other  contagious  diseases  broke  out.  The 
guard-ship  at  the  Nore  was  a  seminary  of  contagion  to  the  whole 
fl^et.  The  inefficiency  of  the  system  was  shown  to  be  as  palpable 
as  its  cruelty.  In  1770,  during  five  months  when  press  warrants 
were  in  execution  through  the  kingdom,  only  eight  thousand  per- 
sons could  be  added  to  the  navy,  although  the  refuse  of  the  jails, 
and  the  outcasts  of  every  town  and  hamlet,  were  of  the  number. 
The  motion  was  of  course  negatived  by  a  large  majority.  Any 
system  of  rational  expenditure  for  the  defence  of  the  country  was 
constantly  opposed  by  the  jobbers  in  parliament.  A  plan  of  registry 
for  seamen,  and  of  bounties  for  enlistment,  was  rejected  for  that 
plan  of  brute  force  which  was  far  more  costly,  and  made  the  naval 
service  so  hateful  that  not  a  ship  of  the  line  in  commission  was  prop- 
erly manned.  "  You  have  a  goodly  show  of  pendants  and  stream- 
ers waving  at  Spithead, "  said  Mr.  Luttrell,  "  but  so  far  are  they 
from  being  formidable,  as  their  appearance  bespeaks,  that  your 
ships  hardly  ride  secure  against  the  equinoctial  gales  of  the  pres- 
ent season,  much  less  are  they  in  any  condition  to  put  to  sea,  and 
*  Franklin's  Works,  vol.  viii.  Note  on  p.  366. 


196  HISTORY   OF   ENGLAND. 

bid  defiance  to  an  enemy.''  *  The  coast  defences  were  so  ne- 
glected as  to  leave  England  equally  exposed  to  attack.  Marshal 
Conway  writes  in  1774  :  "  The  most  important  places  in  the  Eng- 
lish dominions  are  either  lefc  quite  defenceless,  or  such  scanty 
provision  made,  from  the  horror  of  expense,  as  will  neither  give 
security  to  the  objects  concerned,  nor  do  honour  to  those  who 
have  the  conduct  of  the  works.  I  sp  eak  feelingly,  when  I  consider 
that  even  Portmouth  is  in  this  case."  f  Looking  back  upon  many 
such  instances  of  the  neglect  of  the  commonest  means  of  national 
preservation,  we  can  scarcely  regard  our  country  in  any  other 
light  than  as  an  energetic  man,  who,  by  the  inherent  vigour  of  his 
constitution,  has  survived  the  cruelty  and  folly  of  the  silly  nurses  of 
his  childhood,  of  the  ignorant  quacks  who  were  the  torment  of  his 
youth,  and  of  the  venal  guardians  who  starved  him  in  his  adult 
age. 

On  the  28th  of  May,  lord  Camden  acquainted  the  House  of 
Lords  that  the  earl  of  Chatham  intended  to  move  the  consideration 
of  the  American  war  on  the  3oth.  Two  years  had  elapsed  since 
Chatham  had  made  his  appearance  in  public.  These  were  days  of 
suffering  and  solitude.  On  the  I7th  of  November,  1776,  lady 
Chatham  transmitted  to  Dr.  Addington,  "a  Memorandum  of  that 
declaration  concerning  America  which,  from  his  confidence  in  your 
experienced  friendship,  he  reposed,  last  July,  in  your  breast."  J 
The  memorandum,  "  expressed  with  due  precision,  and  in  the 
exact  terms,"  in  the  hand-writing  of  lady  Chatham,  is  a  document 
of  singular  interest.  It  set  forth,  "That  he  continued  in  the  same 
sentiments,  with  regard  to  America,  which  he  had  always  professed, 
and  which  stand  so  fully  explained  in  the  Provisional  Act  offered 
by  him  to  the  House  of  Lords.  Confiding  in  the  friendship  of  Dr. 
Addington,  he  requested  of  him  to  preserve  this  in  memory ;  that 
in  case  he  should  not  recover  from  the  long  illness  under  which  he 
laboured,  the  doctor  might  be  enabled  to  do  him  justice,  by  bear- 
ing testimony  that  he  persevered  unshaken  in  the  same  opinions. 
To  this  he  added,  that  unless  effectual  measures  were  speedily 
taken  for  reconciliation  with  the  colonies,  he  was  fully  persuaded 
that,  in  a  very  few  years,  France  will  set  her  foot  on  English 
ground.  That,  in  the  present  moment,  her  policy  may  probably  be 
to  wait  some  time,  in  order  to  see  England  more  deeply  engaged 
in  this  ruinous  war,  against  herself,  in  America,  as  well  as  to  prove 
how  far  the  Americans,  abetted  by  France  indirectly  only,  may  be 
able  to  make  a  stand,  before  she  takes  an  open  part  by  declaring 

*  "  Parliamentary  Debates."  vol.  xix-  col.  89. 

t  Unpublished  Collectioi    of  Letters, 

t  "  Chatham  Correspondence,"  vol.  iv.  p.  433. 


CHATHAM    APPEARS   AGAIN   IN   PARLIAMENT.  197 

war  upon  England."  The  great  statesman  did  recover  for  a  short 
period.  The  sensation  his  appearance  produced  is  forcibly  described 
in  the  speech  of  the  duke  of  Grafton  on  that  occasion.  After  Chat- 
ham  had  spoken,  the  duke  congratulated  the  House  and  the  nation 
upon  the  evidence  that  the  people  retained  a  grateful  sense  of  the 
high  obligation  they  owed  to  the  great  man  who  had  returned  to 
his  duty  in  parliament.  The  space  before  the  bar,  he  said,  was 
filled  by  gentlemen  of  all  parties  ;  the  avenues  of  the  house  were 
so  crowded  as  not  to  leave  room  for  the  peers  to  come  to  their 
seats.  Swathed  in  flannel,  and  tottering  on  his  crutch,  Chatham 
had  passed  through  this  admiring  crowd,  and  not  a  sound  was 
heard  as  that  melodious  voice,  a  little  enfeebled,  again  charmed 
every  listener.  His  speech  is  imperfectly  reported;  but  a  few 
passages  show  how  the  pristine  vigour  of  his  intellect  survived  his 
bodily  infirmities:  "America  has  carried  you  through  four  wars, 
and  will  now  carry  you  to  your  death,  if  you  don't  take  things  in 
time.  In  the  sportsman's  phrase,  when  you  have  found  yourselves 
at  fault,  you  must  try  back.  You  have  ransacked  every  corner  of 
Lower  Saxony ;  but  forty  thousand  German  boors  never  can  con- 
quer ten  times  the  number  of  British  freemen.  You  may  ravage— 
you  can  not  conquer ;  it  is  impossible ;  you  can  not  conquer  the 
Americans.  You  talk,  my  lords,  of  your  numerous  friends  among 
them  to  annihilate  the  Congress,  and  of  your  powerful  forces  to 
disperse  their  army.  I  might  as  well  talk  of  driving  them  before 
me  with  this  crutch  !  .  .  .  You  have  been  three  years  teaching 
them  the  art  of  war ;  they  are  apt  scholars  ;  and  I  will  venture  to 
tell  your  lordships  that  the  American  gentry  will  make  officers 
enough,  fit  to  command  the  troops  of  all  the  European  powers. 
What  you  have  sent  there  are  too  many  to  make  peace — too  few  to 
make  war.  If  you  conquer  them,  what  then  ?  You  cannot  make 
them  respect  you ;  you  cannot  make  them  wear  your  cloth  ;  you 
will  plant  an  invincible  hatred  in  their  breasts  against  you.  Coming 
from  the  stock  they  do,  they  can  never  respect  you.  The  motion 
of  Chatham  was  for  an  humble  Address  to  the  king,  to  advise  his 
majesty  to  take  the  most  speedy  and  effectual  measures  for  putting 
a  stop  to  such  fatal  hostilities.  The  motion  was  lost  by  a  majority 
of  76  against  26.  The  king  wrote  this  note  the  next  day  to  lord 
North  : — "  Lord  Chatham's  motion  can  have  no  other  use  but  to 
convey  some  fresh  fuel  to  the  rebels.  Like  most  of  the  other  pro- 
ductions of  that  most  extraordinary  brain,  it  contains  nothing  but 
specious  words  and  malevolence." 

Lord  Chatham,  in  his  declaration  to  his  physician,  conjectured 
rightly  that  France  would  abet  the  Americans  indirectly  only  till 


198  HISTORY  OF   ENGLAND. 

they  were  able  to  make  a  stand ;  after  which  she  would  declare 
open  war  against  England.  In  May,  1777,  Von  Steuben,  who  had 
been  aide-de-camp  to  Frederick  of  Prussia,  went  to  Paris  ;  and  had 
various  interviews  with  the  count  de  St.  Germain,  secretary-at-war, 
and  with  the  count  de  Vergennes,  the  minister  of  foreign  affairs. 
The  German  was  sent  for  by  St.  Germain,  who,  spreading  a  map 
upon  the  table,  and  pointing  to  America,  said  "  Here  is  your  field 
of  battle  ;  here  is  a  republic  which  you  must  serve."  Steuben  was 
told  that  the  Congress  and  the  commander-in-chief  wanted  an 
officer  of  military  experience,  who  would  bring  their  army  into  a 
regular  and  permanent  formation.  He  was  referred  to  Beaumar- 
chais,  the  author  of  Figaro,  who  made  him  acquainted  with  Silas 
Deane,  and  Deane  introduced  him  to  Franklin.  The  wary  Amer- 
ican would  make  no  promises  about  money  payments ;  but  talked 
about  presenting  him  with  two  thousand  acres  of  land.  Steuben 
did  not  relish  the  prospect  of  these  distant  advantages,  and 
went  away  to  Germany.  But  he  was  persuaded  to  return  to 
Paris,  and  finally  determined  to  cross  the  Atlantic  as  a  volun- 
teer. Vergennes  said  to  him,  "  You  know  very  well  it  is  im- 
possible for  us  to  make  conditions  with  you.  I  can  only  say,  Go, 
succeed,  and  you  will  never  regret  the  step  you  have  taken."  The 
French  ministers  suggested  to  him  that  he  should  pretend  to  the 
Americans  that  he  had  been  a  major-general  in  the  service  of  the 
margrave  of  Baden,  which  imposing  title,  says  his  biographer, 
"  secured  to  Steuben  the  right  place  in  the  American  army."  With 
letters  to  Franklin,  the  self-created  major-general  sailed  to  America 
in  September,  in  a  ship  freighted  with  materials  of  war  by  Beau- 
marchais,  who  lent  the  volunteer  money  to  start  with.  Two  re- 
markable men  engaged  the  same  year  in  the  American  cause — La 
Fayette,  and  Kosciusko.  La  Fayette,  one  of  the  noble  subalterns 
of  the  French  army,  was  secured  before  he  became  of  age,  by  the 
promise  given  to  him  by  Silas  Deane  that  he  should  have  the  com- 
mission of  a  major-general  in  the  army  of  the  United  States. 
Franklin  gave  Kosciusko  a  letter  to  Washington,  describing  him 
as  "a  man  of  experience  in  military  affairs  and  of  tried  bravery; 
who  had  lost  his  family  and  estate  in  Poland  by  fighting  there  in 
the  cause  of  liberty,  and  wishes,  by  engaging  in  the  same  cause, 
to  find  a  new  country  and  new  friends  in  America."  *  But  the 
old  man  of  Passy  was  harassed  out  of  his  wonted  equanimity  by 
incer.sant  applications  to  recommend  officers  for  the  American 
service.  He  says,  in  answer  to  an  application  of  this  nature,  "  I 
B.m  afraid  to  accept  an  invitation  to  dine  abroad,  being  almost  sure 

*  "  Works,"  vol.  viii.  p.  221. 


BATTLE   OF   THE    BRANDYWINE.  199 

of  meeting  wfth  some  officer,  or  officer's  friend,  who,  as  soon  as  I 
am  put  in  good  humour  by  a  glass  or  two  of  champagne,  begins  his 
attack  upon  me." 

The  British  under  the  command  of  Howe,  and  the  Americans 
under  Washington,  were  engaged  till  the  middle  of  June  in  watch- 
ing and  checking  the  movements  of  each  other.  After  several 
indecisive  encounters,  Howe,  at  the  beginning  of  July,  evacuated 
Jersey ;  and  leaving  a  part  of  his  force  at  New  York,  embarked 
with  a  large  body  of  infantry,  and  two  battalions  of  cavalry,  with 
the  intent  to  reach  Philadelphia  by  sea.  Washington  was  at  first 
perplexed  by  this  sudden  change  of  plan ;  and  thought  Howe's 
conduct  "  puzzling  and  embarrassing  beyond  measure."  His  first 
notion  was  that  Howe  would  endeavour  to  form  a  junction  with 
Burgoyne,  who  was  preparing  to  enter  the  States  from  Canada ; 
but  he  was  at  last  convinced  that  the  British  general's  object  was 
Philadelphia.  To  reach  this  city  Howe  had  employed  many  weeks 
in  sailing  round  a  great  extent  of  coast,  before  he  entered  the 
Chesapeake.  When  he  had  landed  his  troops  at  the  head  of  the 
Elk  river  he  was  as  far  from  Philadelphia  as  if  he  had  remained  in 
his  position  on  the  Delaware.  Washington  marched  to  oppose 
him.  On  the  nth  of  September  lord  Cornwallis,  with  a  strong  de- 
tachment, was  sent  forward  ;  and  on  the  I3th  encountered  the 
American  army  on  the  Brandywine,  a  stream  which  flows  into  the 
Delaware.  The  Americans  were  routed  with  considerable  loss  ; 
and  on  the  27th  Cornwallis  was  in  the  occupation  of  Philadelphia. 
There  were  several  smaller  actions,  especially  that  of  Germantown, 
before  the  winter  set  in  ;  but  Washington  could  not  be  brought  to 
a  general  engagement.  He  went  into  winter  quarters  at  Valley 
Forge,  a  strong  position  on  the  banks  of  the  Schuylkill,  with  an 
army  not  exceeding  four  thousand  men,  who  were  wretchedly 
lodged.  In  the  comfortable  quarters  of  Philadelphia  the  British 
indulged  in.  excesses  by  which  all  discipline  was  relaxed,  and  the 
sober  inhabitants  so  disgusted  that  the  feelings  of  loyalty  which 
many  cherished  were  quickly  destroyed.  The  success  at  the 
battle  of  Brandywine,  and  the  possession  of  Philadelphia,  were 
advantages  that  offered  no  compensation  for  a  terrible  blow  to  the 
royal  cause  in  another  quarter. 

It  had  been  determined  to  invade  the  United  States  from 
Canada,  with  an  army  of  seven  thousand  troops,  British  and  Ger- 
man, under  general  Burgoyne.  Indians  were  engaged  as  auxil- 
iaries ;  and  a  co-operation  with  general  Clinton's  forces  from  New 
York  was  expected.  At  the  end  of  June  Burgoyne  marched.  His 
first  exploit  was  the  re-capture  of  Ticonderoga.  He  next  secured 


JOO  HISTORY   OF    ENGLAND. 

Fort  Edward,  which  the  Americans  abandoned  on  his  approach. 
Before  he  accomplished  this  last  success,  he  had  to  encounter  the 
most  formidable  interruptions  to  his  march,  from  the  nature  of  the 
country,  and  the  artificial  obstacles  which  the  enemy  had  created. 
There  were  no  adequate  supplies  to  be  obtained  as  they  proceeded  ; 
and  the  army  depended  upon  salt  provisions  brought  by  the  lakes 
from  Canada.  The  Indians  who  had  joined  Burgoyne  committed 
atrocities  without  rendering  any  effectual  aid ;  and  their  employ- 
ment by  the  British  provoked  a  determined  resistance  in  the  New 
England  States.  To  encounter  invaders,  whose  cruelties  were 
proclaimed  with  violent  exaggerations  throughout  every  town  and 
hamlet,  a  large  irregular  army  was  speedily  collected.  The  com- 
mand was  given  to  general  Gates  and  to  general  Arnold.  Burgoyne 
too  soon  found  the  enormous  difficulties  of  his  enterprise.  "In  all 
parts,"  he  wrote  home,  "  the  industry  and  management  in  driving 
cattle,  and  removing  corn  are  indefatigable  and  certain.'  He 
could  obtain  no  intelligence  of  general  Howe.  With  stores  for 
thirty  days,  which  he  had  collected  during  a  month,  he  crossed  the 
Hudson  to  Saratoga.  The  army  of  Gates  was  encamped  on  a 
range  of  hills  called  Behmus's  Heights.  On  the  I9th  of  Septem- 
ber a  battle  was  fought,  in  which  the  victory  of  the  British  secured 
no  real  advantage,  for  the  Americans  retired  to  their  lines.  The 
two  armies  continued  in  front  of  each  other  till  the  7th  of  October. 
The  stores  of  Burgoyne  were  rapidly  diminishing;  and  on  that  day 
he  sent  out  a  detachment  of  fifteen  hundred  men  for  the  purpose  of 
covering  a  foraging  party.  Arnold  attacked  them,  and  compelled  a 
retreat,  with  a  loss  of  six  cannon.  He  then  assaulted  Burgoyne's 
lines ;  and  was  repulsed  where  the  British  occupied  them,  but 
succeeded  in  forcing  the  entrenchments  defended  by  a  German 
reserve.  The  royal  army  quitted  their  encampment  in  the  night, 
and  sought  a  safer  position  on  some  higher  ground.  The  next  day 
Burgoyne  saw  the  necessity  of  retreating  to  Saratoga,  leaving  his 
sick  and  wounded  behind  him.  He  was  now  encompassed  with 
enemies  on  every  side  ;  and,  worst  of  all,  his  provisions  were  nearly 
exhausted,  though  for  some  days  the  troops  had  been  upon  short 
rations.  Three  thousand  five  hundred  men  were  all  that  remained. 
The  general  called  a  council  of  war;  and  it  was  determined  to  treat 
with  the  enemy.  A  message  was  sent  to  the  American  head-quarters 
with  a  flag  of  truce.  The  answer  of  general  Gates  was,  that  as 
the  army  of  general  Burgoyne  was  reduced  in  force,  their  provi- 
sions exhausted,  their  horses  and  baggage  taken  or  destroyed,  their 
retreat  cut  off,  their  camp  invested,  they  could  only  be  allowed  to 
surrender  as  prisoners  of  war,  and  were  required  to  ground  their 


PARLIAMENT.  2OI 

arms  within  their  lines.  The  unanimous  resolve  in  the  British  camp 
was  to  reject  the  terms.  It  was  finally  agreed  that  the  army  should 
march  out  of  the  camp  with  the  honours  of  war,  and  pile  their  arms 
at  the  command  of  their  own  officers  ;  that  a  free  passage  should 
be  granted  to  Great  Britain,  upon  the  condition  that  the  tioops 
should  not  serve  again  in  North  America  during  the  war.  On  the 
1 7th  of  October  the  Convention  was  signed;  and  the  small  and 
disheartened  army  received  a  supply  of  fresh  provisions,  and  com- 
menced their  march  to  Massachusetts.  The  conduct  of  the 
American  army  towards  the  vanquished  was  marked  by  the  utmost 
delicacy  and  consideration.  The  conduct  of  the  Congress  was 
very  different.  They  refused  to  permit  the  embarkation  of  Bur, 
goyne  and  his  men  from  Boston  till  the  court  of  Great  Britain  had 
ratified  the  Convention ;  and  under  various  pretences  the  British 
were  detained  for  so  long  a  period  as  to  justify  the  indignation  of 
contemporary  statesmen  and  of  future  historians,  against  this  signal 
instance  of  bad  faith  on  the  part  of  the  American  government. 

The  Session  of  Parliament  was  opened  on  the  i8th  of  Novem- 
ber. There  was  no  change  in  the  tone  of  the  royal  speech.  The 
"  obstinacy  of  the  rebels — a  deluded  and  unhappy  multitude — called 
for  a  steady  pursuit  of  measures  for  the  re-establishment  of  con- 
stitutional subordination."  It  was  known  that  Chatham,  greatly  re- 
stored in  health,  intended  to  move  an  amendment  upon  the  Address. 
By  general  consent,  the  great  orator,  in  all  the  fire  of  his  youth 
and  all  the  majesty  of  his  maturity,  never  exceeded  this  almost 
last  effort  of  his  genius.  The  duke  of  Grafton  says,  "  in  this  de- 
bate he  exceeded  all  that  I  had  ever  admired  in  his  speaking." 
This  speech  was  admirably  reported  by  Hugh  Boyd,  and  thus, 
taken  altogether,  gives  the  most  correct  idea  of  Chatham's  peculiar 
powers.  He  set  forth  the  encouragement  which  France  was  giv- 
ing to  the  ministers  and  ambassadors  of  those  who  are  called  reb- 
els. "  Can  there  be  a  more  mortifying  insult  ?  Can  even  our 
ministers  sustain  a  more  humiliating  disgrace  ?  Do  they  dare  to 
resent  it  ?  ;'  He  foreshadowed  the  fatal  event  of  Saratoga.  "  My 
lords,  you  cannot  conquer  America.  What  is  your  present  situa- 
tion there  ?  We  do  not  know  the  worst ;  but  we  know  that  in  three 
campaigns  we  have  done  nothing  and  suffered  much.  Besides  the 
sufferings,  perhaps  total  loss  of  the  Northern  force,  the  best  ap- 
pointed army  that  ever  took  the  field,  commanded  by  sir  William 
Howe,  has  retired  from  the  American  lines.  .  *  As  to  conquest, 
therefore,  my  lords,  I  repeat,  it  is  impossible.  You  may  swell 
every  expense  and  every  effort  still  more  extravagantly  ;  pile  and 
accumulate  every  assistance  you  can  buy  or  borrow ;  traffic  and 


202  HISTORY   OF    ENGLAND. 

barter  with  every  pitiful  little  German  prince  that  sells  and  sends 
his  subjects  to  the  shambles  of  a  foreign  prince ;  your  efforts  are 
for  ever  vain  and  impotent — doubly  so  from  this  mercenary  aid  on 
which  you  rely ;  for  it  irritates,  to  an  incurable  resentment,  the 
minds  of  your  enemies,  to  overrun  them  with  the  mercenary  sons 
of  rapine  and  plunder,  devoting  them  and  their  possessions  to  the 
rapacity  of  hireling  cruelty.  If  I  were  an  American,  as  I  am  an 
Englishman,  while  a  foreign  troop  was  landed  in  my  country,  I 
never  would  lay  down  my  arms — never — never — never."  He  then 
exclaimed,  Who  is  the  man  who  has  dared  to  authorize  and  associ- 
ate to  our  arms  the  tomahawk  and  scalping-knife  of  the  savage  ? 
and  dwelt  on  this  stain  on  the  national  character,  Though  the 
orator  was  indignant  at  the  manner  in  which  the  war  was  carried 
on,  the  statesman  did  not  give  his  approval  to  the  object  which  the 
Americans  now  proposed  to  themselves.  "  The  independent  views 
of  America  have  been  stated  and  asserted  as  the  foundation  of 
this  address.  My  lords,  no  man  wishes  for  the  due  dependence  of 
America  on  this  country  more  than  I  do.  To  preserve  it,  and  not 
confirm  that  state  of  independence  into  which  your  measures 
hitherto  have  driven  them,  is  the  object  which  we  ought  to  unite  in 
attaining.  The  Americans,  contending  for  their  rights  against  ar- 
bitrary exactions,  I  love  and  admire.  It  is  the  struggle  of  free  and 
virtuous  patriots.  But,  contending  for  independency  and  total  dis- 
connection from  England,  as  an  Englishman,  I  cannot  wish  them 
success  ;  for  in  a  due  constitutional  dependency,  including  the  an- 
cient supremacy  of  this  country  in  regulating  their  commerce  and 
navigation,  consists  the  mutual  happiness  and  prosperity  both  of 
England  and  America." 

Chatham  having  moved  his  amendment  to  the  Address,  lord 
Sandwich  replied,  and  was  succeeded  by  lord  Suffolk,  one  of  the 
Secretaries  of  State.  One  passage  of  his  lordship's  speech  was  as 
follows  :  "  The  noble  earl,  with  all  that  force  of  oratory  for  which 
he  is  so  conspicuous,  has  charged  administration  as  if  guilty  of  the 
most  heinous  crimes,  in  employing  Indians  in  general  Burgoyne's 
army ;  for  my  part,  whether  foreigners  or  Indians,  which  the  noble 
lord  has  described  by  the  appellation  of  savages,  I  shall  ever  think 
it  justifiable  to  exert  every  means  in  our  power  to  repel  the  at- 
tempts of  our  rebellious  subjects.  The  Congress  endeavoured  to 
bring  the  Indians  over  to  their  side,  and  if  we  had  not  employed 
them,  they  would  most  certainly  have  acted  against  us  ;  and  I  do 
freely  confess,  I  think  it  was  both  a  wise  and  necessary  measure, 
as  I  am  clearly  of  opinion,  that  we  are  fully  justified  in  using  every 
means  which  God  and  Nature  has  put  into  our  hands."  The  duke 


INVECTIVE   AGAINST   THE    EMPLOYMENT   OF    INDIANS.       203 

of  Grafton  thus  describes  the  reply  of  Chatham  to  this  position  : 
"  He  stood  up  with  a  degree  of  indignation  that  added  to  the  force 
of  the  sudden  and  unexampled  burst  of  eloquence  which  must  have 
affected  any  audience,  and  which  appeared  to  me  to  surpass  all 
that  we  have  ever  heard  of  the  celebrated  orators  of  Greece  or 
Rome."  Having  denounced  the  horrible  notion  of  attributing  the 
sanction  of  God  and  Nature  to  the  massacres  of  the  Indian  scalping- 
knife,  he  thus  proceeded  :  "  These  abominable  principles,  and  this 
more  abominable  avowal  of  them,  demand  the  most  decisive  in- 
dignation. I  call  upon  that  right  reverend  bench,  those  holy  min- 
isters of  the  Gospel,  and  pious  pastors  of  our  Church — I  conjure 
them  to  join  in  the  holy  work,  and  vindicate  the  religion  of  their 
God.  I  appeal  to  the  wisdom  and  the  law  of  this  learned  bench, 
to  defend  and  support  the  justice  of  their  country.  I  call  upon 
the  Bishops  to  interpose  the  unsullied  sanctity  of  their  lawn ;  upon 
the  learned  Judges  to  interpose  the  purity  of  their  ermine,  to  save 
us  from  this  pollution.  I  call  upon  the  honour  of  your  lordships,  to 
reverence  the  dignity  of  your  ancestors,  and  to  maintain  your  own. 
I  call  upon  the  spirit  and  humanity  of  my  country,  to  vindicate  the 
national  character.  I  invoke  the  genius  of  the  Constitution. 
From  the  tapestry  that  adorns  these  walls,  the  immortal  ancestor 
of  this  noble  lord  frowns  with  indignation  at  the  disgrace  of  his 
country.  In  vain  he  led  your  victorious  fleets  against  the  boasted 
Armada  of  Spain ;  in  vain  he  defended  and  established  the  honour, 
the  liberties,  the  religion — the  Protestant  religion — of  this  country, 
against  the  arbitrary  cruelties  of  popery  and  the  Inquisition,  if 
these  more  than  popish  cruelties  and  inquisitorial  practices  are  let 
loose  among  us — to  turn  forth  into  our  settlements,  among  our 
ancient  connections,  friends,  and  relations,  the  merciless  cannibal, 
thirsting  for  the  blood  of  man,  woman,  and  child !  to  send  forth  the 
infidel  savage — against  whom  ?  against  your  Protestant  brethren  ; 
"to  lay  waste  their  country,  to  desolate  their  dwellings,  and  extirpate 
their  race  and  name  with  these  horrible  hell-hounds  of  savage  war 
— hell-hounds,  I  say  of  savage  war  !  Spain  armed  herself  with 
blood-hounds  to  extirpate  the  wretched  natives  of  America,  and  we 
improve  on  the  inhuman  example  even  of  Spanish  cruelty  ;  we  turn 
loose  these  savage  hell-hounds  against  our  brethren  and  country- 
men in  America,  of  the  same  language,  laws,  liberties,  and  religion, 
endeared  to  us  by  every  tie  that  should  sanctify  humanity."  .... 
"  My  lords,  I  am  old  and  weak,  and  at  present  unable  to  say  more ; 
but  my  feelings  and  indignation  were  too  strong  to  have  said  less. 
I  could  not  have  slept  this  night  in  my  bed,  nor  reposed  my  head 
on  my  pillow,  without  giving  this  vent  to  my  eternal  abhorrence  of 
such  preposterous  and  enormous  principles." 


204  .      HISTORY   OF    ENGLAND. 

On  the  3rd  of  December,  colonel  Barre,  having  called  upon 
lord  George  Germaine  "to  declare,  upon  his  honour,  what  was  be- 
come of  general  Burgoyne  and  his  brave  troops,"  he  admitted  that 
he  had  received  a  piece  of  very  disastrous  intelligence  from 
Quebec.  Furious  was  the  indignation  against  the  ministry. 
Charles  Fox  declared  that  an  army  of  ten  thousand  men,  destroyed 
through  the  obstinate  wilful  ignorance  and  incaoacity  of  the  noble 
lord,  called  loudly  for  vengeance.  A  gallant  general  was  sent  like 
a  victim  to  be  slaughtered.  He  was  ordered  to  make  his  way  to 
Albany  to  wait  the  orders  of  sir  William  Howe ;  but  general  Howe 
knew  nothing  of  the  matter,  for  he  was  gone  to  a  different  country, 
and  left  the  unhappy  Burgoyne  and  his  troops  to  make  the  best 
terms  for  themselves.  Fox  moved  for  copies  of  instructions  to 
Burgoyne,  which  motion  was  negative. 

Washington's  position  in  his  winter  quarters  of  Valley  Forge 
was  such  as  to  demand  the  utmost  exercise  of  his  energy  and  for- 
titude. His  commissariat  department  was  in  .'.  frightful  state  of 
incapacity.  He  wrote  to  Congress  on  the  23rd  of  December, 
"  Unless  some  great  and  capital  change  suddenly  takes  place  in 
that  line,  this  army  must  inevitably  b  reduced  to  one  or  other  of 
these  three  things — starve,  dissolve,  or  disperse,  in  order  to  obtain 
subsistence  in  the  best  manner  they  can."  In  answer  to  some 
presumptuous  remarks  of  members  of  Congress,  i'eprobating  his 
going  into  winter  quarters,  he  says,  "  I  can  assure  these  entlemen 
that  it  is  a  much  easier  and  less  distressing  thing  to  draw  remon- 
strances in  a  comfortable  room  by  a  good  fireside,  than  to  occupy 
a  cold  bleak  hill,  and  sleep  under  frost  and  snow,  without  clothes 
or  blankets."  Steuben  arrived  in  Washington's  camp  at  this 
period  of  suffering.  He  found  the  military  administration  en- 
trusted to  departments  having  separate  powers — quartermaster- 
general,  war-commissary,  provisions'  commissary,  commissary  01 
the  treasury,  paymaster  of  forage, — "  bad  copies  of  a  bad  origma 
— that  is  to  say,  they  had  imitated  the  English  administration, 

which  is  certainly  the  most  imperfect  in  Europe The 

English  system,  bad  as  it  is,  had  already  taken  root.  Each  com- 
pany and  quarter-master  had  a  commission  of  so  much  per  cent,  on 
all  the  money  he  expended.  It  was  natural,  therefore,  that  expense 
was  not  spared."  *  In  the  condition  of  the  troops  he  found  disor- 
der and  confusion  supreme.  The  men  were  engaged  only  for  three, 
six,  or  nine  months,  so  that  it  was  impossible  to  have  a  regiment  or 
a  company  complete.  "  I  have  seen  a  regiment  consisting  of  thirty 
men,  and  a  company  of  one  corporal."  A  general  would  have 

*"Steuben's  Life,"  p.  114—  Extracts  from  his  MS.  papers. 


STEUBEN   RE -ORGANIZES   THE  ARMY.  205 

thought  himself  lucky  to  find  a  third  of  the  men  ready  for  action 
whom  he  found  upon  paper.  "  The  arms  at  Valley  Forge  were  in 
a  horrible  condition,  covered  with  rust,  half  of  them  without  bay- 
onets, many  from  which  a  single  shot  could  not  be  fired."  The  men 
were  literally  naked.  Officers  mounted  guard  in  a  sort  of  dress- 
ing-gown made  of  an  old  blanket.  The  formation  of  the  regiments 
was  as  varied  as  their  mode  of  drill,  which  only  consisted  of  the 
manual  exercise,  each  colonel  having  a  system  of  his  own.  They 
could  only  march  in  files,  after  the  manner  of  the  Indians.  Such, 
according  to  Steuben,  was  the  condition,  of  an  army  that  was  to 
resist  the  regularly  disciplined  troops  of  England,  provided  with 
necessaries  of  war  at  an  unbounded  expense.  It  may  be  instruct- 
ive to  see  how  the  Prussian  officer  set  about  bringing  this  irregu- 
lar force  into  something  like  military  order,  with  the  sanction  of 
Washington.  He  drafted  a  hundred  and  twenty  men  from  the 
line,  as  a  guard  for  the  chief-in-command.  He  drilled  them  him- 
self twice  a  day.  "  In  a  fortnight  my  company  knew  perfectly 
how  to  bear  arms,  had  a  military  air,  knew  how  to  march,  deploy, 
and  execute  some  little  manoeuvres  with  excellent  precision."  In 
the  course  of  instruction  he  departed  altogether  from  the  general 
rule.  "In  our  European  armies  a  man  who  has  been  drilled  for 
three  months  is  called  a  recruit ;  here,  in  two  months,  I  must  have 
a  soldier.  In  Europe,  we  had  a  number  of  evolutions  very  pretty 
to  look  at  when  well  executed,  but  in  my  opinion  absolutely  useless 
so  far  as  essential  objects  are  concerned."  He  reversed  the  whole 
system  of  eternal  manual  and  platoon  exercises,  and  commenced 
with  manoeuvres.  He  soon  taught  them  something  better  than  the 
pedantic  routine  which  was  taught  in  manuals  of  tactics.  To  the 
objectors  against  Steuben's  system  it  was  answered,  "that  in  fact 
there  was  no  time  to  spare  in  learning  the  minutiae — the  troops 
must  be  prepared  for  instant  combat."  The  sagacious  German 
had  his  men  at  drill  every  morning  at  sunrise  ;  and  he  soon  made 
the  colonels  of  regiments  not  ashamed  of  instructing  their  recruits. 


206  HISTORY  OF   ENGLAND. 


CHAPTER    XI. 

Public  opinion  on  the  American  War. — Measures  of  conciliation  proposed  by  lord  North. 
-  France  concludes  a  treaty  of  amity  with  America. — Chatham's  last  speech  in  Parlia- 
ment.— His  sudden  illness  in  the  House  of  Lords. — His  death. — Propositions  of  lord 
North  rejected  by  Congress. — French  fleet  under  d'Estaing  arrives  in  America. — 
Attack  on  Rhode  Island  impeded  by  fleet  under  lord  Howe. — Admiral  Keppel  takes 
the  command  of  the  Channel  Fleet. — Engagement  off  Ushant. — Court-martial  on 
Keppel. — Burgoyne's  defence  of  himself  in  Parliament- — Destruction  of  Wyoming. 
— Spain  declares  war  against  Great  Britain. — Apprehensions  of  invasion. — The  na- 
tional spirit  roused. — Enterprises  of  Paul  Jones. — Military  operations  in  America  in 
1779. 

THE  voice  of  Edmund  Burke  was  rarely  heard  in  parliament  on 
the  subject  of  America  during  the  two  Sessions  of  1777.  In  his 
remarkable  "  Letter  to  the  Sheriffs  of  Bristol,"  he  says  :  "  It  is 
some  time  since  I  have  been  clearly  convinced,  that  in  the  present 
state  of  things,  all  opposition  to  any  measures  proposed  by  minis- 
ters, where  the  name  of  America  appears,  is  vain  and  frivolous. 
.  .  .  Everything  proposed  against  America  is  supposed,  of  course, 
to  be  in  favour  of  Great  Britain.  Good  and  ill  success  are  equally 
admitted  as  reasons  for  persevering  in  the  present  method.  Several 
very  prudent,  and  very  well-intentioned,  persons  were  of  opinion, 
that  during  the  prevalence  of  such  dispositions,  all  struggle  rather 
inflamed  than  lessened  the  distemper  of  the  public  counsels.  Find- 
ing such  resistance  to  be  considered  as  factious  by  most  within 
doors,  and  by  very  many  without,  I  cannot  conscientiously  sup- 
port what  is  against  my  opinion,  nor  prudently  contend  with  what 
I  know  is  irresistible."  The  tone  of  this  letter  sufficiently  indicates 
the  conviction  of  one  who  sagaciously  watched  the  course  of  public 
opinion,  that  the  contest  with  America  had  reached  such  a  stage, 
that  those  who  continued  to  advocate  principles  of  conciliation, 
were  not  supported  by  the  majority  of  the  British  nation.  Burke 
saw  the  injury  that  the  prevailing  sentiment  was  producing  upon 
the  national  character  :  "  Liberty  is  in  danger  of  being  made  un- 
popular to  Englishmen.  Contending  for  an  imaginary  power,  we 
begin  to  acquire  the  spirit  of  domination,  and  to  lose  the  relish  of 
honest  equality.  The  principles  of  our  forefathers  become  sus- 
pected to  us,  because  we  see  them  animating  the  present  opposi- 
tion of  our  children."  At  the  commencement  of  the  war  this  state 


MEASURES   OF   CONCILIATION   PROPOSED.  207 

of  public  opinion  was  wholly  irrational  and  almost  base.  In  1776, 
the  American  Declaration  of  Independence  turned  aside  many 
friends  of  pacific  measures,  to  regard  the  conflict  as  one  which  it 
became  the  dignity  of  Great  Britain  to  carry  on  to  a  successful  as- 
sertion of  national  rights.  But  in  1778,  when  France  was  ostensi- 
bly preparing  to  support  the  cause  of  the  revolted  colonies,  there 
could  be  little  doubt  that  the  advocates  for  recognizing  the  claim  to 
independence,  thus  enforced  by  a  power  systematically  hostile  to 
British  interests,  would  form  a  very  inconsiderable  portion  of  the 
people ; — that  continued  opposition  to  the  government  upon  this 
question  would  be  "  considered  factious  by  most  within  doors,  and 
by  very  many  without." 

At  the  beginning  of  1778  Manchester  and  Liverpool  came  for- 
ward in  a  marked  display  of  loyalty.  Each  community  offered  to 
raise  a  regiment  of  a  thousand  men  at  their  own  expense.  Edin- 
burgh,Glasgow,  and  parts  of  the  Highlands,exhibited  a  similar  spirit. 
Large  subscriptions  were  provided  in  London  for  raising  men  for 
his  majesty's  service.  These  proceedings  took  place  during  the  re- 
cess ;  and  when  the  Houses  met  in  January,  strong  objections  were 
taken  to  what  was  held  to  be  the  unconstitutional  measure  of 
levying  troops  by  private  subscription  without  the  consent  of  parlia- 
ment. Lord  North  rejoiced  in  the  manifestation  of  public  spirit, 
which  he  regarded  as  a  tribute  to  the  conduct  of  the  administra- 
tion. But  the  prime  minister,  whilst  thus  exulting  that  "  a  very 
loyal  part  of  his  majesty's  subjects  had  expressed  their  abhorrence 
of  an  unnatural  rebellion,"  was  about  to  depart  very  widely  from 
the  principle  on  which  the  contest  had  been  hitherto  conducted. 
On  the  1 7th  of  February  lord  North  brought  in  two  Bills, — the  first 
of  which  was  entitled,  "  For  removing  all  doubts  and  apprehen- 
sions concerning  Taxation  by  the  Parliament  of  Great  Britain  in 
any  of  the  Colonies."  This  was  a  complete  and  utter  renunciation 
of  the  right  of  Great  Britain  to  impose  any  tax  upon  the  American 
Colonies,  except  only  such  duties  as  it  might  be  expedient  to  im- 
pose for  the  regulation  of  commerce,  the  net  produce  of  which  was 
always  to  be  applied  to  the  use  of  the  Colony  in  which  the  duties 
were  levied.  The  second  Bill  was  to  enable  the  king  to  appoint  com- 
missioners with  ample  powers  to  treat  upon  the  means  of  quieting 
the  disorders  in  America ;  and  they  were  authorized  to  treat  and 
agree  with  any  body  or  bodies  politic ;  or  any  person  or  persons 
whatsoever.  The  commissioners  were  thus  empowered  to  treat 
with  the  Congress  as  if  it  were  a  legal  body,  and  as  if  its  acts  and 
concessions  would  bind  all  America.  The  Congress,  said  lord 
North,  had  raised  a  difficulty  with  the  former  commission,  on  pre- 


208  HISTORY   OF   ENGLAND. 

tence  of  the  non-admission  of  their  title  to  independent  States. 
"  As  the  Americans  might  claim  their  independence  in  the  outset, 
he  would  not  insist  on  their  renouncing  it  till  the  treaty  should  re- 
ceive its  final  ratification  by  the  king  and  parliament  of  Great 
Britain."  The  minister,  in  recapitulating  the  circumstances  of  this 
unhappy  contest,  from  the  period  of  the  Stamp  Act,  maintained 
that,  from  the  beginning,  he  had  been  uniformly  disposed  to  peace. 
In  the  historical  part  of  the  Annual  Register,  written  no  doubt  by 
Burke,  the  temper  of  the  House  is  thus  recorded :  "  A  dull  melan^ 
choly  silence  for  some  time  succeeded  to  this  speech.  It  had  been 
heard  with  profound  attention,  but  without  a  single  mark  of 
approbation  to  any  part,  from  any  description  of  men,  or  any 
particular  man,  in  the  House.  Astonishment,  dejection,  and 
fear,  over-clouded  the  whole  assembly.  Although  the  minister 
had  declared,  that  the  sentiments  he  expressed  that  day  had  been 
those  which  he  always  entertained,  it  is  certain  that  few  or  none 
had  understood  him  in  that  manner;  and  he  had  been  represented 
to  the  nation  at  large,  as  the  person  in  it  most  tenacious  of  those 
parliamentary  rights  which  he  now  proposed  to  resign,  and  the 
most  remote  from  the  submissions  which  he  now  proposed  to  make. 
It  was  generally  therefore  concluded,  that  something  more  extraor- 
dinary and  alarming  had  happened  than  yet  appeared,  which  was  of 
force  to  produce  such  an  apparent  change  in  measures,  principles, 
and  arguments." 

The  "  something  more  extraordinary  and  alarming  than  yet  ap- 
peared," was  soon  to  be  manifested.  On  the  I7th  of  March,  a 
royal  message  was  presented  to  both  Houses,  stating  that  his  ma- 
jesty had  been  informed,  by  order  of  the  French  king,  "  that  a 
treaty  of  amity  and  commerce  had  been  signed  between  the  court 
of  France  and  certain  persons  employed  by  his  majesty's  revolted 
subjects  in  North  America;  "  and  that  in  consequence  of  this  of- 
fensive communication  the  king  had  sent  orders  to  his  ambassador 
to  withdraw  from  the  French  court.  The  communication  was  made 
to  the  British  secretary-of -state,  by  the  French  ambassador  in  Lon- 
don, on  the  1 3th  of  March.  On  the  I4th,  lord  North  earnestly 
pressed  the  king  to  accept  his  resignation,  and  to  send  for  lord 
Chatham.  The  letters  of  the  king  sufficiently  manifest  the  strong 
aversion  which  his  majesty  had  taken  to  the  statesman  who,  in  this 
crisis  of  his  country's  fate,  was  looked  up  to  as  the  only  English- 
man who  was  likely  to  conciliate  America  whilst  he  alarmed  France. 
The  king,  on  the  I5th  of  March,  declared  that  he  did  not  object 
to  lord  North  applying  to  lord  Chatham  to  support  his  administra- 
tion ;  but  adding,  that  no  advantage  to  my  country,  nor  personal 


CHATHAM'S  LAST  SPEECH  IN  PARLIAMENT.        209 

danger  to  myself,  can  make  me  address  myself  to  lord  Chatham  or 
to  any  other  branch  of  opposition.  Honestly,  I  would  rather  lose 
the  crow-n  I  now  wear  than  bear  the  ignominy  of  possessing  it  under 
their  shackles."  In  another  letter  of  the  same  day  he  says,  "  I 
4on't  expect  that  lord  Chatham  and  his  crew  will  come  to  your  as- 
sistance." Lord  North  continuing  to  press  for  a  more  complete 
change  of  ministers  than  the  king  contemplated,  the  correspondence 
continued  for  several  days  in  the  same  determined  exhibition  of 
the  sovereign's  implacability.  Chatham  he  terms  "  that  perfidious 
man."  He  would  not  have  him,  "  as  Dictator,  planning  a  new  ad- 
ministration." Lord  North  at  length  consented  to  go  on  as  the 
head  of  a  ministry  till  the  Session  oi  Parliament  was  closed.  A 
few  official  changes  were  made,  the  most  important  of  which  was 
the  appointment  of  the  Attorney-General,  Thurlow,  to  be  Lord 
Chancellor.  The  national  feeling,  with  regard  to  Chatham,  was 
expressed  in  a  letter  to  lady  Chatham,  by  Thomas  Coutts,  the  emi- 
nent banker.  He  said  that  lord  Chatham's  health  "  becomes  every 
day  more  interesting,  in  the  present  desponding  state  of  the  people. 
Every  rank  looks  up  to  him,  with  the  only  gleam  of  hope  that  re- 
mains." In  a  few  weeks  a  higher  power  than  courts  or  senates 
decided  that  Chatham  should  be  at  rest — indifferent  to  the  hatred 
of  a  king,  or  the  veneration  of  a  people. 

The  duke  of  Richmond  had  given  notice  in  the  House  of  Lords 
of  a  motion  which  he  intended  to  make  on  the  yth  of  April,  "  for 
an  address  to  the  king  upon  the  state  of  the  nation."  On  the  5th 
the  duke  sent  to  lord  Chatham  the  draft  of  his  proposed  Address ; 
which  Chatham  returned  the  next  day,  expressing  his  concern  "  to 
find  himself  under  so  wide  a  difference  with  the  duke  of  Richmond 
as  between  the  sovereignty  and  allegiance  of  America."  *  Chat- 
ham was  slowly  recovering  from  a  fit  of  the  gout ;  but  he  deter- 
mined to  go  to  town  from  Hayes,  and  take  his  place  in  Parliament. 
Lord  Camden,  in  a  letter  to  the  duke  of  Grafton,  describing  the 
closing  scene  of  the  great  earl's  public  life,  says,  "  he  was  not  in  a 
condition  to  go  abroad ;  and  he  was  earnestly  requested  no:  to  make 
the  attempt."  Camden  saw  him  in  the  Prince's  Chamber  before  he 
went  into  the  House  ;  and  remarked  "  the  feeble  state  of  his  body, 
and  the  distempered  agitation  of  his  mind."  An  eye-witness  has  re- 
corded his  appearance.  "  Lord  Chatham  came  into  the  House  of 
Lords,  leaning  upon  two  friends,  lapped  up  in  flannel,  pale,  and  ema- 
ciated. Within  his  large  wig,  little  more  was  to  be  seen  than  his 
aquiline  nose  and  his  penetrating  eye.  He  looked  like  a  dying  man, 

*  "Chatham  Correspondence,"  vol.  iv.  p.  518 

VOL.  VI.— 14 


210  HISTORY   OF    ENGLAND. 

yet  never  was  seen  a  figure  of  more  dignity."  *  The  two  friends 
were  his  son,  William  Pitt,  and  lord  Mahon,  his  son-in-law.  The 
duke  of  Richmond  had  made  his  motion  for  an  Address.  Viscount 
Weymouth  had  opposed  the  motion.  The  earl  of  Chatham,  continues 
the  narrative  of  the  eye-witness,  "rose  from  his  seat  with  slowness 
and  difficulty,  leaning  on  his  crutches,  and  supported  under  each 
arm  by  his  two  friends.  He  took  one  hand  from  his  crutch,  and 
raised  it,  casting  his  eyes  towards  heaven,  and  said,  '  I  thank  God 
that  I  have  been  enabled  to  come  here  this  day,  to  perform  my 
duty,  and  to  speak  on  a  subject  which  has  so  deeply  impressed  my 
mind.  I  am  old,  and  infirm — have  one  foot,  more  than  one  foot, 
in  the  grave — I  am  risen  from  my  bed,  to  stand  up  in  the  cause  of 
my  country,  perhaps  never  again  to  speak  in  this  House.'"  He 
rejoiced  that  he  was  still  able  to  lift  up  his  voice  against  the  dis- 
memberment of  this  ancient  and  most  noble  monarchy.  "  My 
Lords,  his  majesty  succeeded  to  an  empire  as  great  in  extent  as  its 
reputation  was  unsullied.  Shall  we  tarnish  the  lustre  of  this  nation 
by  an  ignominous  surrender  of  its  rights  and  fairest  possessions  ? 
Shall  this  great  kingdom,  which  has  survived  whole  and  entire  the 
Danish  depredations,  the  Scottish  inroads,  and  the  Norman  con- 
quest— that  has  stood  the  threatened  invasion  of  the  Spanish 
armada — now  fall  prostrate  before  the  House  of  Bourbon  ?  Surely, 
my  lords,  this  nation  is  no  longer  what  it  was.  Shall  a  people  that, 
fifteen  years  ago,  was  the  terror  of  the  world,  now  stoop  so  low  as 
to  tell  its  ancient  inveterate  enemy,  Take  all  we  have,  only  give  us 
peace  ?  "  Lord  Camden  describes  the  words  of  Chatham  as  "  shreds 
of  unconnected  eloquence,  and  flashes  of  the  same  fire  which  he, 
Prometheus-like,  had  stolen  from  heaven  ;  and  were  then  returning 
to  the  place  from  whence  they  were  taken."  That  withering  sarcasm 
which  occasionally  found  its  place  in  his  impassioned  harangues, 
was  not  absent  in  this  last  effort.  Speaking  of  the  probability  of 
invasion,  he  said,  "  Of  a  Spanish  invasion,  of  a  French  invasion,  of  a 
Dutch  invasion,  many  noble  lords  may  have  read  in  history  ;  and 
some  lords  may  perhaps  remember  a  Scotch  invasion."  He  looked 
at  lord  Mansfield.  The  duke  of  Richmond  replied  ;  and  then  Chat- 
ham made  an  effort  again  to  address  the  House.  "  He  fell  back 
upon  his  seat,"  writes  Camden,  "  and  was  to  all  appearance  in  the 
agonies  of  death.  This  threw  the  whole  House  .nto  confusion. 
Every  person  was  upon  his  legs  in  a  moment,  hurrying  from  one  place 
to  another,  some  sending  for  assistance,  others  producing  salts,  and 
others  reviving  spirits  ;  many  crowding  about  the  earl  to  observe  his 
countenance  ;  all  affected ;  most  part  really  concerned ;  and  even 

*  "Seward's  Anecdotes,"  vol.  i.  p.  383-     Fifth  edit. 


PROPOSITIONS    OF    LORD    NORTH    REJECTED.  211 

those  who  might  have  felt  a  secret  pleasure  at  the  accident  yet  put  on 
the  appearance  of  distress,  except  only  the  earl  of  M.,  who  sat  still, 
almost  as  much  unmoved  as  the  senseless  body  itself."  There  was 
one  who,  though  "  born  and  bred  a  Briton,"  felt  no  regret  that  one 
of  the  noblest  vindicators  of  Britain's  honour  had,  in  all  human  prob- 
ability, concluded  his  eventful  career.  The  king  the  next  day  wrote 
lo  lord  North,  "  May  not  the  political  exit  of  lord  Chatham  incline 
you  to  continue  at  the  head  of  affairs  ? "  The  political  exit  was  quickly 
followed  by  the  close  of  the  "  last  scene  of  all."  Chatham  died  at 
Hayes  on  the  i  ith  of  May.  On  the  day  after  his  decease,  the  House 
of  Commons  unanimously  resolved  to  honour  his  memory  by  a 
public  funeral  and  a  public  monument.  The  king  was  "  rather  sur- 
prised," he  said  in  a  note  to  lord  North,  at  such  a  testimony  ;  but 
trusted  it  would  be  merely  an  expression  of  gratitude  for  Chatham's 
having  roused  the  nation  at  the  beginning  of  the  late  war,  and  his 
conduct  as  Secretary  of  State.  "  This  compliment,  if  paid  to  his 
general  conduct,"  added  his  majesty,  "  is  rather  an  offensive  meas- 
ure to  me  personally."  The  funeral  in  Westminster  Abbey  was 
attended  by  few  of  the  party  in  power.  The  monument,  by  Banks, 
"erected  by  the  King  and  Parliament  as  a  testimony  to  the  virtues 
and  abilities  of  William  Pitt,  earl  of  Chatham,"  records  that  dur- 
ing his  administration,  "  Divine  Providence  exalted  Great  Britain 
to  an  height  of  prosperity  and  glory  unknown  to  any  former  age." 
The  cenotaph  erected  by  the  Corporation  of  London  has  an  in- 
scription of  higher  import.  The  monument  to  William  Pitt  is 
placed  in  the  Guildhall  of  the  City  of  London,  "that  her  citizens 
may  never  meet  for  the  transaction  of  their  affairs  without  being 
reminded,  that  the  means  by  which  Providence  raises  a  nation  to 
greatness  are  the  virtues  infused  into  great  men ;  and  that  to  with" 
hold  from  those  virtues,  either  of  the  living  or  the  dead,  the  tribute 
of  esteem  and  veneration,  is  to  deny  to  themselves  the  means  of 
happiness  and  honour." 

The  news  of  the  French  alliance  being  concluded  reached 
Washington's  camp  at  Valley  Forge  on  the  4th  of  May.  The 
biographer  of  Steuben  records  that  ';  suddenly  the  public  distress 
seemed  to  be  forgotten  amidst  universal  joy."  Many  supposed 
that  immediate  peace  would  be  the  natural  consequence  of  this 
change  of  circumstances.  Steuben  wrote  to  Henry  Laurens,  then 
President  of  Congress,  to  offer  his  congratulations  "  in  seeing  the 
independence  of  America  established  on  so  solid  a  basis."  The 
cautious  President  replies,  "  It  is  my  op'nion  that  we  are  not  to 
roll  down  a  green  bank  and  toy  away  the  ensuing  summer.  There 
is  blood,  much  blood,  in  our  prospect.  Britain  will  not  be  hummed 


212  HISTORY   OF    ENGLAND. 

by  a  stroke  of  policy.  She  will  be  very  angry,  and  if  she  is  to  fall, 
her  fall  will  be  glorious,  We,  who  know  her,  ought  to  be  pre- 
pared.""* 

The  pacific  measures  of  the  British  government  produced  not 
the  slightest  change  in  the  policy  of  the  leaders  of  the  American 
revolution.  Washington  held  that  the  propositions  and  the  speech 
of  lord  North  must  have  proceeded  from  despair  of  the  nation's 
succeeding  against  the  United  States.  When  the  Commissioners 
under  lord  North's  bill  arrived  at  Philadelphia,  they  found  the 
army  about  to  evacuate  the  town;  having  received  positive  orders 
to  that  effect  from  home.  Howe  had  resigned  his  command,  which 
had  been  transferred  to  sir  Henry  Clinton.  The  abandonment  of 
Philadelphia ;  the  certainty  of  the  French  alliance ;  the  contempt 
which  was  felt  at  the  vacillating  policy  of  the  ministry,  emboldened 
the  Congress  to  treat  the  royal  Commissioners  with  little  cere- 
mony. That  body  refused  to  hold  a  conference  with  them,  unless 
they  should  withdraw  the  naval  and  military  power  of  Great  Brit- 
ain, or  acknowledge  the  Independence  of  America  in  direct  terms. 
No  reply  was  given  to  the  explanatory  offers  of  the  Commissioners 
• — offers  which,  if  made  in  the  early  days  of  the  contest,  would  have 
commanded  not  only  willing  obedience  but  fervent  gratitude.  The 
Commissioners  determined  to  return  to  England ;  but  they  first 
took  the  somewhat  dangerous  step  of  addressing  a  Manifesto  to 
the  American  people,  remonstrating  against  the.  decision  of  the 
Congress,  and  holding  out  the  threat  that  if  peace  and  union  were 
refused,  the  war  would  in  future  be  conducted  upon  different  prin- 
ciples. "  The  policy,  as  well  as  the  benevolence,  of  Great  Britain, 
have  thus  far  checked  the  extremes  of  war,  when  they  tended  to 
distress  a  people  still  considered  as  our  fellow  subjects,  and  to 
desolate  a  country  shortly  to  become  again  a  source  of  mutual 
advantage  ;  but  when  that  country  professes  the  unnatural  design, 
not  only  of  estranging  herself  from  us,  but  of  mortgaging  herself 
and  her  resources  to  our  enemies,  the  whole  contest  is  changed." 
Upon  this  plea,  it  was  affirmed  that  the  laws  of  self-preservation 
called  upon  Great  Britain,  if  her  colonies  were  to  become  an  acces- 
sion to  France,  "  to  render  that  accession  of  as  little  avail  as  pos- 
sible to  her  enemy."  When  this  Manifesto  was  brought  before 
Parliament  at  the  end  of  the  year,  there  were  different  opinions  as 
to  the  meaning  to  be  attached  to  such  a  threat ;  but  most  men,  not 
wholly  subservient  to  fhe  ministry,  agreed  with  Burke,  that  "  if  the 
war  was  to  be  changed, — if  the  lenity,  the  humanity,  the  toleration, 
which  had  been  hitherto  observed,  was  to  be  "foregone, — and  we 

*  "  Life  rf  Steuber.,"  p.  138. 


RHODE    ISLAND.  213 

had  foreborne  nothing  that  the  rights  of  war  could  authorize, — 
then  the  plan  now  to  be  prosecuted  was  different  from  lenity  and 
toleration,  and  was  different  from  the  laws  of  war ;  for  war  was 
constantly  to  be  limited  by  necessity,  and  its  calamities  and  ravages 

to  be  bound  in  by  that  plea  alone The  extremes  of  war, 

and  the  desolation  of  a  country,  were  sweet  sounding  mutes  and 
liquids,  but  their  meaning  was  terrible  ;  they  meant  the  killing  of 
man,  woman,  and  child,  burning  their  houses  and  ravaging  their 
lands,  annihilating  humanity  from  the  face  of  the  earth,  or  render- 
ing it  so  wretched,  that  death  would  be  preferable."  * 

The  war  of  Great  Britain  against  France  and  A  merica  at  once 
became  a  fierce  struggle  by  land  and  sea.  When  sir  Henry  Clin- 
ton had  marched  through  Jersey  with  Washington  following  him, 
and  a  partial  battle  had  been  fought  on  the  28th  of  June,  the 
British  army  was  at  last  established  at  New  York,  with  a  large 
garrison  at  Rhode  Island.  A  French  fleet  from  Toulon,  under  the 
count  d'Estaing,  had  appeared  off  New  York  on  the  5th  of  July. 
It  consisted  of  twelve  sail  of  the  line  and  six  frigates,  with  a  large 
number  of  troops  on  board.  It  was  determined  to  attack  the 
British  on  Rhode  Island,  by  a  combined  army  of  four  thousand 
French  and  ten  thousand  Americans.  The  garrison  of  five  thou- 
sand retired  within  their  lines  at  Newport.  The  Americans  had 
crossed  the  narrow  strait  called  the  Seaconnet  Channel ;  and 
d'Estaing  was  about  to  land  his  troops  on  the  west  side  of  the 
island,  when  the  fleet  under  lord  Howe  appeared  in  sight,  and  the 
French  admiral  put  to  sea  to  offer  battle,  leaving  his  allies  to  pur- 
sue the  siege  of  Newport  alone.  The  fleets  were  prevented  engag- 
ing by  a  violent  storm,  by  which  they  were  both  dismantled.  Each 
went  into  port  to  refit ;  the  British  to  New  York,  the  French  to 
Boston.  The  abandonment  of  the  Americans  by  d'Estaing  com*- 
pelled  them  to  relinquish  their  enterprise  upon  Rhode  Island  ;  and 
bitter  was  their  indignation  against  their  allies.  The  French 
admiral  finally  sailed  to  pursue  his  own  plans  of  attacking  the 
British  West  Indian  Islands,  or  defending  those  of  France.  The 
island  of  St.  Lucia  was  taken  by  the  British,  and  Dominica  by  the 
French. 

In  the  House  of  Commons,  on  the  5th  of  May,  Thomas  Town- 
shend  noticed  the  sailing  of  the  French  fleet  from  Toulon,  whilst 
our  fleet  was  merely  exhibited  as  a  pageant  at  Portsmouth — a 
"puppet-show,"  as  Walpole  terms  it.  Lord  North  said  the  utmost 
exertions  had  been  made.  Though  no  fleet  had  sailed,  the  minis- 
ters were  not  to  be  accused  of  incapacity ;  for  the  French  at  all 

*  "  Parliamentary  Debates,"  vol.  jcix.  col.  1400. 


214  HISTORY   OF    ENGLAND. 

times,  by  their  mode  of  supply  of  seamen  from  their  registers, 
could  man  a  fleet  sooner  than  England.  Admiral  Keppel,  an 
experienced  officer,  and  highly  popular  with  the  navy,  had  been 
appointed  to  the  command  of  the  Channel  fleet.  The  appointment 
was  creditable  to  the  ministry,  for  Keppel  was,  as  a  member  of 
Parliament,  strongly  opposed  to  their  policy.  When  he  first  ac- 
cepted the  command  he  found  only  six  ships  of  the  line  fit  for 
service;  but  before  the  middle  of  June  the  number  was  increased 
to  twenty.  He  sailed  from  St.  Helen's  on  the  I7th  of  June.  Two 
French  frigates,  reconnoitring,  were  attacked  by  his  squadron ;  one 
of  which  was  captured  and  the  other  driven  on  shore  on  the  coast 
of  France.  Amongst  the  papers  of  the  Lecorne  thus  captured,  he 
discovered  that  anchorage  was  ordered  at  Brest  for  an  immense 
fleet,  with  which  he  thought  his  own  unable  to  contend.  He 
sailed  back  to  Portsmouth.  The  public  feeling  is  expressed 
in  a  letter  of  Gibbon  : — "  Keppel's  return  has  occasioned  infinite 
and  inexpressible  consternation,  which  gradually  changed  into  dis- 
content against  him."  The  Admiralty  made  great  exertions;  and 
Keppel,  on  the  Qth  of  July,  again  put  to  sea  with  a  reinforcement 
of  ten  ships.  The  French  fleet,  consisting  of  thirty-two  sail  of  the 
line,  and  a  considerable  number  of  frigates,  had  come  out  from 
Brest,  under  the  command  of  count  d'Orvilliers.  After  four  days' 
manoeuvring,  an  engagement  took  place  off  Ushant,  which  had  no 
decisive  result.  Night  was  coming  on  with  a  heavy  squall.  Kep- 
pel signalled  to  the  second  in  command,  sir  Hugh  Palliser,  to  come 
up  to  renew  the  fight;  but  that  admiral  was  unable  to  obey  the 
order,  from  the  damage  which  his  ship  had  sustained.  The  French 
admiral  got  back  to  Brest,  and  Keppel  sailed  to  Plymouth.  The 
conduct  of  the  two  admirals  became  the  subject  of  warm  debates 
when  the  Parliament  met  in  November.  Attacks  and  recrimina- 
tions were  conducted  with  all  the  heat  of  party  ;  Keppel  being  upon 
terms  of  friendship  with  the  leading  members  of  the  Opposition ; 
Palliser  a  supporter  of  the  ministry,  and  a  lord  of  the  Admiralty. 
Each  admiral  blamed  the  other  ;  and,  finally,  upon  charges  made 
by  Palliser  against  Keppel  for  misconduct  and  incapacity,  a  court- 
martial  was  ordered.  The  trial  lasted  thirty-two  days,  and  ended 
in  a  unanimous  verdict  of  the  Court,  that  Keppel  had  acted  with 
bravery  and  judgment,  and  that  the  charges  were  ill-founded  and 
malicious.  This  court-martial  has  been  rendered  illustrious  by  a 
passage  of  Burke,  in  which  he  describes  "  with  what  zeal  and 
anxious  affection  I  attended  him  through  that  his  agony  of  glory. 
•  .  .  .  If  to  the  eternal  disgrace  of  this  nation,  and  to  the 
total  annihilation  of  every  trace  of  honour  and  virtue  in  it,  things 


BURGOYNE'S  DEFENCE  IN  PARLIAMENT.      215 

had  taken  a  different  turn  from  what  they  did,  I  should  have  at- 
tended him  to  the  quarter-deck  with  no  less  good  will,  and  more 
pride,  than  I  partook  of  the  general  flow  of  national  joy  that  at- 
tended the  justice  that  was  done  to  his  virtue."  *  The  popular 
enthusiasm  in  favour  of  Keppel  was  indeed  remarkable.  It  may 
be  attributed,  in  part,  to  a  conviction  that  the  government  was  un- 
equal to  the  conduct  of  the  war.  The  people  could  not  be  sup- 
posed to  feel  with  Burke  that  Keppel  was  "  one  of  the  greatest  and 
best  men  of  his  age  ;  "  but  they  illuminated  and  rioted  for  his  acquit- 
tal ;  and  his  portrait  became  a  favourite  sign  in  town  and  country. 
Palliser  demanded  a  court-martial  upon  himself,  and  received  an 
acquittal  of  a  very  qualified  character.  The  extravagant  admiration 
of  Keppel,  and  the  proportionate  depreciation  of  Palliser,  may  sug- 
gest the  opinion  that  admirals  and  generals  may  receive  a  more 
impartial  judgment  from  their  contemporaries  by  withholding  their 
support  from  extreme  parties  in  politics. 

General  Burgoyne  returned  to  England  in  the  spring  of  1778, 
Congress  having  consented  to  give  him  passports,  upon  the  con- 
dition that  he  would  go  back  to  America,  and  abide  the  fate  of  the 
rest  of  the  army,  should  their  embarkation  continue  to  be  prevented. 
He  was  treated  coldly  by  our  government,  and  refused  admission 
to  the  royal  presence.  A  court  of  inquiry  into  his  conduct  was 
refused,  upon  the  ground  that  he  was  a  prisoner  on  parole  to  the 
Congress.  As  a  member  of  Parliament,  he  had  an  opportunity  of 
vindicating  the  Convention  of  Saratoga.  The  blame  that  had  been 
attached  to  him  for  the  employment  of  Indians  in  his  campaign 
appears  to  have  wounded  him  very  deeply.  He  stated  that  he 
always  believed  the  Indian  alliances  to  be,  at  best,  a  necessary 
evil.  He  had  declined  their  offers  and  solicitations  to  be  employed 
separately.  He  had  presided  at  one  of  the  greatest  councils  with  the 
Indians  that  had  been  held  at  Montreal.  It  was  their  custom  to 
offer  the  pipe  of  war  to  the  representative  of  the  power  they  meant 
to  serve.  It  was  pressed  upon  him  by  the  chiefs  present ;  and  it 
was  at  his  option,  by  a  single  whiff  of  tobacco,  to  have  given  flame 
and  commotion  to  a  dozen  nations.  He  had  acted  in  this  matter 
under  the  instructions  of  sir  Guy  Carleton  in  1776 ;  and  when  he 
came  to  England  in  that  year  he  found  the  system  of  restraining 
the  impetuous  passions  of  these  people  unpopular  with  those 
official  persons  who  had  adopted  the  reasoning,  in  their  zeal  against 
the  colonists,  that  partial  severity  was  general  mercy.  He  return- 
ed to  Canada,  determined  to  be  the  soldier,  not  the  executioner,  of 
the  State.  The  eloquent  invective  of 'Chatham,  we  thus  see,  had 

*"  Letter  to  the  Duke  cf  Bedford." 


21 6  'HISTORY   OF   ENGLAND. 

in  view  the  ministerial  directors  of  the  war  rather  than  the  com- 
mander who  succumbed  to  unavoidable  difficulties. 

Connected  with  the  subject  of  the  barbarities  of  the  Indians, 
there  is  an  event  of  the  year  1778,  which  has  been  rescued  from 
the  possible  oblivion  of  History  by  the  more  enduring  associations 
of  Poetry.*     Wyoming,  on  the   Susquehanna,  consisting  of  eight 
townships,  was  a  new  settlement.     The  soil  was  fertile  ;  the  cli- 
mate genial ;  the  inhabitants  unusually  prosperous.     Happy  they 
were  not,  for  a  minority  amongst  them  was  bitterly  opposed  to 
those  who  resisted  the  British  government.      The  people  were  re- 
moved from  the  scene  of  hostilities ;  yet  the  greater  number  took 
a  deep  interest  in  the  contest  for  independence,  and  had  sent  a 
large  proportion  of  their  adult  male  population  to  the  army  of  the 
Congress.     The  infant  settlement  was  comparatively  defenceless  ; 
although  four  forts  had  been  constructed  to  resist  the  inroads  of 
the  savages.     The  right  to  the  soil  was  a  disputed  point  between 
the  States  of  Connecticut  and  Pennsylvania  ;  and  in  the  absence 
of  central  control  those  who  were  loyalists,  or  Tories,  were  exposed 
to  rigorous  treatment.     The  mutual  hatred  between  the  two  parties 
of  Americans  was  too  often  marked  by  persecution  ;  and  political 
differences  became  the  justification  for  rapine  and  revenge.     Many 
of  the  Tories  of  Wyoming  had   abandoned  the  settlement.     Some 
strangers   had  come   amongst   the  inhabitants  of  the  townships 
under  suspicious  circumstances,  and  had  been  arrested  and  sent 
to  Connecticut.     At  the  beginning  of  July,  a  body  of  armed  men, 
amounting  to   sixteen   hundred,  appeared    on  the   Susquehanna. 
One  fourth  of  these  were  Indians.     The  whole  force  was  com- 
manded by  a  partisan  known  as  colonel  Butler ;  and  according  to 
the  accounts  of  the  time,  by  one   Brandt,  half   Indian  by  blood, 
ferocious   and   cruel  beyond    example — "  the  Monster  Brandt."  f 
One  of  the  smaller  forts  was  first  taken  by  storm,  and  all  the  men 
were  massacred.     The  commander  of  another  fort  was  induced  to 
march  out  with  four  hundred  men  to  hold   a  parley ;  and  after  a 
murderous  struggle  only  seventy  escaped.     In  a  third  fort  the  men 
were  slaughtered,  or  burnt  alive.     In  a  fourth  the  same  indiscrimi- 
nate havoc  was  pursued,  with  similar  cruelty.     Then   commenced 
such  a  wholesale   destruction  of  houses,  corn-ricks,  standing  corn, 
as  the  terrible  devastations  of  what  some  have  called  regular  war- 
fare could  scarcely  parallel.     The  sufferings  of  those  who  fled  from 

*  Campbell  s  "  Gertrude  of  Wyoming." 

t  ''  Gertrude  of  Wyoming,"  Mr.  Campbell,  in  a  note  to  the  latter  editions  of  his 
poem,  says  he  was  misled  by  popular  accounts,  and  that  Brandt  was  not  present  at  Wy- 
oming. 


SPAIN   DECLARES   WAR   AGAINST    GREAT    BRITAIN.        217 

the  scenes  of  devastation,  to  endure  all  the  miseries  of  inhospitable 
woods,  were  almost  as  great  as  those  of  the  victims  of  the  Indian 
tomahawk.  Other  such  scenes  of  havoc  took  place  in  back  settle- 
ments. 

The  Annual  Register  of  1779,  opens  with  a  sentence  that  can 
scarcely  be  held  as  founded  merely  upon  vain  apprehensions : 
"  The  year  oi  which  we  treat  presented  the  most  awful  appearances 
of  public  affairs,  which  this  country  had  perhaps  beheld  for  many 
ages.  .  .  .  Mankind  seemed  to  wait,  with  an  aspect  which  at 
best  bespoke  indifference,  for  the  event  of  that  ruin  which  was  ex- 
pected to  burst  upon  us."  The  writer  proceeds  to  say,  that  "the 
expected  evil  and  danger  were  less  dreadful  in  the  encounter  than 
in  the  distant  appearance."  In  that  year  Spain  joined  France  in. 
the  alliance  against  Great  Britain.  On  the  i6th  of  June  the  king 
sent  a  message  to  parliament  announcing  that  the  Spanish  minister 
had  delivered  a  state-paper  which  amounted  to  a  declaration  of  war. 
Invasion  was  expected  ;  and  a  proclamation  was.  issued,  charging 
all  civil  and  military  authorities  to  remove  horses,  cattle,  and  pro- 
visions from  the  coast  in  case  of  a  descent.  An  extraordinary 
measure  was  carried  through  parliament,  by  a  suspension  of  the 
Standing  Orders,  to  do  away  with  all  exemptions  from  impress- 
ment into  the  royal  navy.  Ships  of  the  line  were  rotting  in  the 
harbour  for  want  of  sailors,  it  was  affirmed — "  Will  you  trust  the 
existence  of  this  country  to  the  fate  of  a  battle  on  shore  ?  "  An 
encampment  of  large  bodies  of  militia  was  formed  on  Cox  Heath. 
The  spirit  of  the  country  was  again  roused,  as  when  Spain  threat- 
ened England  in  days  of  yore.  Her  fleet,  combined  with  that  of 
France,  rode  in  the  Channel,  with  as  mighty  a  display  as  when 
Drake  went  out  from  Plymouth  to  encounter  the  galleons.  The 
united  fleet  consisted  of  sixty-six  sail  of  the  line,  with  a  large  num- 
ber of  frigates,  and  smaller  vessels.  Sir  Charles  Hardy  left  Ports- 
mouth with  thirty-eight  ships  ;  and  although  the  combined  arma- 
ment was  insulting  the  coast,  he  could  not  venture  on  an  action 
with  a  force  so  superior.  But  in  avoiding  an  engagement  he  did 
good  service  in  leading  the  enemy  to  pursue  him ;  and  thus  divert- 
ing their  object  of  landing  an  invading  army.  The  stormy  season 
was  approaching  whilst  time  was  thus  gained.  The  ships  of  both 
the  hostile  nations  were  in  bad  condition.  A  malignant  disease 
had  broken  out  amongst  their  crowded  sailors  and  troops.  The 
Spanish  admiral  declared  to  the  French  admiral,  that  he  must  re- 
turn to  his  own  ports.  The  French  admiral  chose  the  same  pru- 
dent course.  When  the  king  opened  the  parliament  in  November, 
he  exulted  that  the  designs  and  attempts  at  invasion  had,  by  the 


2l8  HISTORY   OF   ENGLAND. 

blessing  of  Providence,  been  frustrated.  Lord  North  in  the  debate 
on  the  Address,  spoke  with  a  British  spirit  that  found  a  response 
in  the  national  feelings.  The  combined  powers  of  France  and 
Spain  "  had  fitted  out  a  powerful  armament ;  they  appeared  upon 
our  coasts,  it  is  true  ;  they  talked  big,  threatened  a  great  deal,  did 
nothing,  and  retired.  It  should  be  remembered  that  the  enemy 
professed  themselves  to  be  acting  on  the  offensive  ;•  we  were  as 
professedly  acting  on  the  defensive.  They  came  with  a  declared 
intention  to  invade,  we  to  resist  such  an  attempt ;  they  were  there- 
fore foiled,  for  they  had  not  dared  even  to  make  the  attempt. 
Their  immense  armaments  paraded  to  no  purpose;  and  their  mil- 
lions were  spent  in  vain.  Had  they  landed,  and  indeed  he  almost 
wished  they  had,  their  reception,  he  was  confident,  would  have 
been  such  as  would  have  added  to  their  disgrace  ;  and  would  have 
convinced  them,  that  a  British  militia  had  spirit  enough  to  defend 
their  country,  and  repel  invaders." 

In  May,  1779,  Benjamin  Franklin  was  accredited  by  the  Con- 
gress as  the  sole  representative  of  the  United  States  at  the  court 
of  France — their  Minister  Plenipotentiary.  In  a  letter  from  Passy 
he  describes  his  gracious  reception  by  Louis  XVI.  at  Versailles  ; 
and  his  constant  weekly  attendance  at  the  royal  leve'e.  To  a 
friend  in  America  he  says,  "  Perhaps  few  strangers  in  France 
have  had  the  good  fortune  to  be  so  universally  popular."  *  The 
society  and  conversation  of  the  French  ladies  he  describes  as  ex- 
tremely agreeable.  But  the  energetic  old  man  was  occupied  m 
more  serious  affairs  than  the  enjoyment  of  a  brilliant  society,  in 
which  his  brown  cloth  coat  was  a  remarkable  contrast  to  the  velvet 
and  embroidery  of  all  around  him.  His  abilities  were  constantly 
directed  to  the  difficult  task  of  raising  money  upon  American  credit 
and  of  employing  it  to  organize  attacks  upon  the  coasts  of 
Britain.  Franklin's  correspondence  shows  that  he  was  the  active 
agent  in  the  employ  and  direction  of  John  Paul  Jones,  who,  with  a 
little  squadron  in  the  American  service,  did  considerable  damage 
to  British  commerce,  and  produced  no  small  amount  of  alarm,  in 
1779.  The  first  notion  was  to  fit  out  an  expedition,  in  which  the 
sea  forces  should  be  commanded  by  Jones,  and  the  land  forces  by 
La  Fayette.  Franklin's  instructions  to  his  American  captain  refer 
to  this  expedition  "as  an  introduction  only  to  greater  trusts  and 
more  extensive  commands."  The  French  government  hesitated 
about  this  joint  adventure  ;  and  finally  Paul  Jones  sailed  with  three 
ships  and  a  brigantine.  and  did  surprising  feats  which  justified  his 
selection  as  a  bold  captain  and  a  skilful  seaman.  What  he  was 

*  "  Correspondence,"  vol.  viii.  p.  401. 


ENTERPRISES   OF   PAUL   JONES.  2IQ 

encouraged  to  do  may  be  collected  from  Franklin's  letters.  "  It 
was  intended  to  send  him  with  some  transports  and  troops  to  make 
descents  in  England.  Had  not  the  scheme  been  altered  by  a  gen- 
eral one  of  a  grand  invasion,  I  know  he  would  have  endeavoured 
to  put  some  considerable  towns  to  a  high  ransom,  or  have  burnt 
them.  He  sailed  without  the  troops,  but  he  nevertheless  would 
have  attempted  Leith,  and  went  into  the  Firth  of  Edinburgh  with 
that  intention,  but  a  sudden  hard  gale  of  wind  forced  him  out 
again."  Franklin  adds,  that  the  burning  of  Fairfield  and  other 
towns  by  the  British  in  America  had  demolished  all  his  moderation. 
We  may  consider  that  Leith  and  perhaps  Edinburgh  were  provi- 
dentially saved  by  the  "  sudden  hard  gale  of  wind  "  from  the  fate 
which  this  unscrupulous  rover  had  prepared  for  them.  Sir  Walter 
Scott,  when  a  boy,  was  in  Edinburgh  when  Jones  came  into  the 
Firth  ;  and  "  the  capital  of  Scotland  was  menaced  by  three  trifling 
sloops  or  brigs,  scarce  fit  to  have  sacked  a  fishing-village."  An 
old  Highland  chief,  Stuart  of  Invernahyle,  was  the  only  man  who 
thought  of  a  feasible  plan  of  resistance.  "  A  steady  and  powerful 
west  wind  settled  the  matter."  But  Paul  Jones  had  better  work  be- 
fore him  than  sack  and  plunder.  "  Going  north  about,"  writes 
Franklin,  "  he  fell  in  with  a  number  of  ships  from  the  Baltic,  con- 
voyed by  a  fifty-gun  ship  and  a  twenty-four-gun  frigate,  both  of 
which  he  took."  These  vessels  were  the  Serapis  and  the  Scar- 
borough. The  engagement  was  a  desperate  one  ;  and  the  largest 
vessel  of  the  American  squadron,  the  Bonhomme  Richard,  sank 
two  days  after  the  action.  "  The  three  trifling  sloops,  or  brigs," 
described  by  Scott,  were  in  truth  large  vessels,  formidably  armed 
and  well-manned.  His  two  prizes  were  carried  by  Jones  into  a 
neutral  port  in  Holland.  The  English  captains,  Pearson  and 
Piercy,  fought  their  vessels  with  the  most  desperate  courage. 
The  colours  of  the  Serapis  were  not  struck  till  two-thirds  of  her 
men  were  killed  or  wounded.  Paul  Jones,  a  native  of  Scotland, 
had  been  bred  to  the  sea ;  had  settled  in  Virginia ;  and  had  re- 
ceived a  commission  from  Congress  on  the  breaking  out  of  the 
war. 

The  military  operations  in  the  Northern  States  of  America, 
during  1779,  were  not  of  much  importance  with  reference  to  the 
superiority  of  either  army.  There  were  successes  on  either  side 
which  are  scarcely  necessary  to  be  detailed  in  our  brief  general 
history.  Washington  was  doing  every  thing  that  a  prudent  com- 
mander could  accomplish  in  the  face  of  great  difficulties.  He  was 
more  apprehensive  of  the  consequences  of  corrupt  and  evil  man- 
agement than  of  any  struggle  in  the  field.  He  writes  in  March  to 


220  HISTORY   OF    ENGLAND. 

general  Warren,  "  Our  conflict  is  not  likely  to  cease  so  soon  as 
every  good  man  could  wish.  The  measure  of  iniquity  is  not  yet 
filled  ;  and,  unless  we  can  return  a  little  more  to  first  principles, 
and  act  a  little  more  upon  patriotic  ground,  I  do  not  know  when  it 
will,  or  what  may  be  the  issue  of  the  contest."  He  complains  of 
speculation,  peculation,  engrossing,  which  afford  too  glaring  in- 
stances of  its  being  the  interest  and  desire  of  some  to  continue 
the  war.  He  laments  the  depreciation  of  the  currency.  This  de- 
preciation had  now  gone  beyond  any  example  of  European  history 
in  which  the  promises  to  pay  of  a  government  were  treated  as  lit- 
tle better  than  waste-paper."  "  A  waggon-load  of  money,"  wrote 
Washington,  "  will  now  scarcely  purchase  a  waggon-load  of  pro- 
visions." He  held  that  this  depreciation,  with  the  manifest  proofs 
of  speculation,  stock-jobbing,  and  party-dissensions,  kept  the  arms 
of  Britain  in  America,  and  led  the  British  government  and  their 
friends  to  believe  that  the  Americans  would  be  their  own  con- 
querors. 

The  inactivity  of  the  British  army  in  the  Northern  States  was 
compensated  by  successes  in  the  South.  .Towards  the  end  of 
1778,  sir  Henry  Clinton  despatched  an  expedition  by  sea  to 
Georgia.  Savannah  was  taken  ;  and  the  province  was  reduced  to 
submission.  Georgia  and  South  Carolina  were  occupied  through 
the  winter  by  British  troops  ;  the  fertility  of  these  countries  af- 
fording a  plentiful  supply  of  stores.  This  occupation  materially 
facilitated  the  success  of  the  Southern  campaign  of  1780. 


ASSOCIATIONS    FOR   REDRESS   OF   GRIEVANCES.  221 


CHAPTER  XIII. 

Associations  for  redress  of  grievances. — Meetings  in  Yorkshire  and  other  Counties.— 
Burke's  proposals  for  Economical  Reform.— rDunning's  motion  on  the  influence  ol 
the  Crown. — Decreasing  strength  of  the  Opposition. — Protestant  Associations  in 
Scotland. — They  extend  to  England. — Lord  George  Gordon. — Procession  to  Parlia- 
ment.— Roman  Catholic  chapels  burnt. — Newgate  set  on  fire. — Lord  Mansfield's 
House  sacked. — The  library  burnt. — Continued  riots. — A  council  called. — Wedder- 
burn's  opinion  on  the  employment  of  military. — The  riots  stopped  by  military  force. 
—Naval  affairs. — The  war  in  America. — Charleston  taken  by  the  British. — Lord 
Cormvallis. — His  severities. — French  armament  under  Rochambeau. — Treachery  of 
Benedict  Arnold. — Major  Andr6  seized. — Verdict  of  a  Council  of  Officers — His 
execution. 

THE  internal  affairs  of  the  country  in  the  year  1780  are,  in 
many  respects,  as  interesting  and  instructive  as  those  of  any  year 
in  our  annals.  England  was,  unquestionably,  distinctly  threatened 
with  some  great  political  convulsion.  The  obstinate  persistence 
in  the  war  with  America  had  brought  upon  the  country  its  natural 
consequences, — excessive  taxation,  and  interruption  to  the  usual 
course  of  profitable  industry.  Twenty  years  only  had  elapsed 
since  the  nation  looked  back  upon  a  period  of  unexampled  pros- 
perity, and  of  signal  triumph  :  of  victory  abroad  and  of  tranquillity 
at  home.  The  nation  had  then  confidence  in  the  directors  of  its 
affairs ;  regarded  the  parliament  as  the  true  representative  of  pub- 
lic opinion ;  and  viewed  the  sovereign  power,  according  to  the 
principles  of  the  Revolution,  as  the  especial  guardian  of  the  free- 
dom and  happiness  of  the  people.  A  young  prince  had  come  to 
the  crown,  with  every  apparent  disposition  to  rule  righteously  and 
constitutionally ;  and  yet,  from  the  first  year  of  his  accession,  a 
system  of  favouritism  had  surrounded  the  throne  with  a  host  of 
placemen,  who  were  chosen  to  assert  an  invidious  distinction  be- 
tween the  interests  of  the  king  and  the  measures  of  the  responsi- 
ble servants  of  the  State.  During  these  twenty  years  a  great 
change  had  come  over  the  popular  convictions.  The  parliament 
had  become  opposed  to  the  people  ;  and  the  executive  power  had 
grown  out  of  harmony  with  the  theory  of  the  constitution,  through 
the  tendency  to  govern  by  the  corruption  of  the  parliament.  The 
preponderating  influence  of  a  great  aristocratic  party  had  indeed 
been  weakened,  and  in  many  essentials  destroyed  j  but  with  that 


222  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

weakness  had  come  a  proportionate  weakness  of  the  democratic 
element  of  the  constitution.  The  time  had  arrived  when  the  mi- 
nority in  parliament,  whether  Peers  or  Commoners,  saw  that,  to 
renew  their  strength  as  a  governing  power,  they  must  identify 
themselves  more  distinctly  with  the  people.  The  abuses  conse- 
quent upon  the  excessive  number  of  sinecure  offices,  and  of  large 
pensions  unsanctioned  by  parliamentary  authority,  called  for  Econ- 
omical Reform.  The  scandalous  proportion  of  members  of  the 
House  of  Commons  returned  for  rotten  boroughs  demanded  Re- 
form in  Parliament.  A  vast  amount  of  public  opinion  was  brought 
to  bear  upon  these  two  points,  in  the  form  of  Associations  for  the 
redress  of  grievances.  During  the  Christmas  recess  a  spirit  burst 
forth  in  many  of  the  most  influential  counties  of  England,  to  which 
there  had  probably  been  no  parallel  since  the  days  of  Hampden. 
Had  the  gross  ignorance  of  large  masses  of  the  populace  not  taken 
the  form  of  brutal  riot,  in  a  direction  opposed  to  the  progress  of 
tolerant  opinions,  this  spirit  might  have  produced  some  great 
change  in  our  representative  system, — a  change  dangerous,  be- 
cause premature  ;  unsubstantial,  because  an  extended  suffrage  re- 
quired a  solid  foundation  of  popular  intelligence.  Burke,  in  vin- 
dicating the  scheme  of  Economical  Reform  which  he  advocated  at 
that  time,  as  a  moderate  concession  to  a  just  public  demand,  says 
of  "the  portentous  crisis  from  1780  to  1782,"  that  "it  was  one  of 
the  most  critical  periods  in  our  annals Such  was  the  dis- 
temper of  the  public  mind,  that  there  was  no  madman,  in  his 
maddest  ideas,  and  maddest  projects,  who  might  not  count  upon 
numbers  to  support  his  principles  and  execute  his  designs."  * 
_  On  the  8th  of  February,  sir  George  Savile,  the  respected  mem- 
ber for  Yorkshire,  presented  to  the  House  of  Commons  the  Peti- 
tion of  a  great  meeting  of  the  Gentlemen,  Clergy,  and  Freeholders 
of  his  county,  which  was  signed  by  eight  thousand  persons.  "It 
was  first  moved,"  said  sir  George,  "  in  a  meeting  of  six  hundred 
gentlemen  and  upwards.  In  the  hall  where  this  petition  was  con- 
ceived there  was  more  property  than  within  the  walls  of  this  House." 
Ha  said  that  there  was  a  committee  appointed  to  correspond  on  the 
subject  of  the  petition  with  the  committees  of  other  counties.  The 
Yorkshire  petition  set  forth,  as  the  consequences  of  a  most  expen- 
sive and  unfortunate  war,  a  large  addition  to  the  national  debt, 
heavy  accumulation  of  taxes,  a  rapid  decline  of  the  trade,  manufac- 
tures, and  land-rents  of  the  kingdom.  It  then  came  to  the  chief 
grievance :  "  Alarmed  at  the  diminished  resources  and  growing 
burdens  of  this  country,  and  convinced  that  rigid  frugality  is  now 

*  "  Letter  to  a  Noble  Lord." 


MEETINGS    IN    YORKSHIRE.  22J 

indispensably  necessary  in  every  department  of  the  State,  your 
petitioners  observe  with  grief,  that  notwithstanding  the  calamitous 
and  impoverished  condition  of  the  nation,  much  public  money  has 
been  improvidently  squandered,  and  that  many  individuals  enjoy 
sinecure  places,  efficient  places  with  exorbitant  emoluments,  and 
pensions  unmerited  by  public  service,  to  a  large  and  still  increasing 
amount ;  whence  the  Crown  has  acquired  a  great  and  unconstitu- 
tional influence,  which,  if  not  checked,  may  soon  prove  fatal  to  the 
liberties  of  this  country." 

The  great  meeting  in  Yorkshire  gave  an  example  to  the  rest  of 
England.  Twenty-three  counties  adopted  similar  petitions,  and  ap- 
pointed their  corresponding  committees.  Motions  for  Economical 
Reform  had  been  brought  forward  in  the  House  of  Lords  before 
the  recess ;  and  Burke  had  given  notice  of  the  measure  which  he 
intended  to  propose.  On  the  nth  of  February  he  accomplished 
this  intention,  in  the  delivery  of  a  speech  which  is  amongst  the 
master-pieces  of  English  composition, — unsurpassed  in  lucidness 
of  detail,  force  of  reasoning,  historical  research,  and  gleams  of 
wit  and  poetry,  by  any  example  of  parliamentary  rhetoric.  The 
perusal  of  this  speech  will  show  how  many  gross  abuses  have 
been  corrected  during  the  eighty  years  that  have  elapsed ;  and, 
what  is  better,  how  much  wiser  and  honester  a  spirit  has  arisen  to 
govern  the  public  expenditure  in  every  department, — making  it 
shame  to  fill  an  office  without  its  duties,  or  to  receive  a  pension 
without  desert.  Many  of  the  details  of  reform  treated  of  in  this 
speech  are  now,  happily,  things  of  a  past  time.  The  royal  house- 
hold, whose  manifold  offices  were  derived  from  the  feudal  prin- 
ciple and  the  system  of  purveyance,  is  now  conducted  upon  the 
same  plan  as  that  of  a  nobleman's  establishment.  The  turnspit  in 
the  royal  kitchen  is  no  longer  a  member  of  parliament.  The  num- 
ber of  covers  on  the  royal  table  is  no  longer  determined  by  a  Board 
of  Green  Cloth.  Offices,  whose  very  names  sound  strange  to  us, 
were  then  kept  up  for  parliamentary  influence  alone.  They  are 
gone.  Some  great  officers  are  attached  to  the  royal  person,  as  of 
old ;  though  they  are  not  perhaps  retained  upon  the  principle  laid 
down  by  Burke,  that,  because  "kings  are  fond  of  low  company,"  it 
is  of  importance  to  provide  such  an  establishment  as  will  bring 
about  the  royal  person  a  great  number  of  the  first  nobility.  Gene- 
ral principles  too  often  fall  short  in  their  practical  application. 
Burke  proposed  to  abolish  the  offices  of  master  of  the  buck-hounds 
and  harriers,  as  they  answered  no  purpose  of  utility  or  of  splen- 
'kmr.  "  It  is  not  proper  that  great  noblemen  should  be  keepers  of 
dogs,  though  they  were  the  king's  dogs."  Many  other  courtly  ap- 


224  HISTORY   OF    ENGLAND. 

.  pointments  are  vanished.  The  master  of  the  buck-hounds  remains , 
and  if  the  office  is  filled  by  a  courteous  gentleman  and  a  bold  rider, 
its  utility  is  not  too  curiously  investigated.  Though  some  of  the 
details  of  Burke's  bill  present  evils  no  longer  unreformed,  his  gen- 
eral principles  of  reform  will  always  remain  as  a  guide  to  honest 
administrators.  Out  of  seven  fundamental  rules  which  he  lays 
down,  three,  especially,  will  apply  to  all  time ;  and,  it  may  be  feared, 
will  never  cease  to  require  a  vigilant  application. 

"  That  all  jurisdictions  which  furnish  more  matter  of  expense, 
more  temptation  to  oppression,  or  more  means  and  instruments  of 
corrupt  influence,  than  advantage  to  justice  or  political  administra- 
tion, ought  to  be  abolished. 

"  That  all  offices  which  bring  more  charge  than  proportional 
advantage  to  the  State  ;  that  all  offices  which  may  be  engrafted  on 
others,  uniting  and  simplifying  their  duties,  ought,  in  the  first  case, 
to  be  taken  away ;  and  in  the  second,  to  be  consolidated. 

"  That  it  is  right  to  reduce  every  establishment,  and  every  part 
of  an  establishment  (as  nearly  as  possible),  to  certainty,  the  life  of 
all  order  and  good  management." 

Burke,  in  his  truly  statesmanlike  speech  upon  Economical  Re- 
form, argued  that  a  temperate  reform  is  permanent,  because  it  has 
a  principle  of  growth.  "  Whenever  we  improve,  it  is  right  to  leave 
room  for  a  further  improvement."  It  is  the  recognition  of  this 
principle  which  has  enabled  us  gradually  to  effect  .many  improve- 
ments which  Burke  did  not  think  ripe  for  advocating  in  his  own 
day.  He  proposed  to  reform  the  crying  abuses  of  the  offices  of 
Paymaster  of  the  Forces  and  Treasurer  of  the  Navy,  each  of  which 
officers  had  a  separate  treasury,  and  derived  large  profits  from  the  use 
of  money  which  they  retained  in  their  hands.  The  first  William  P  itt, 
as  we  have  seen,  disdained  such  an  irregular  addition  to  the  profits 
of  place.  His  rival,  Fox,  and  his  successors,  were  not  so  scrupu- 
lous. Burke  proposed  to  reduce  the  enormous  profits  of  the  Audi- 
tors of  the  Exchequer.  In  our  own  times  such  profits  of  patent 
places  were  made  odious  by  the  disinterested  renunciation  of  lord 
Camden.  Public  opinion  in  our  country  is  ultimately  potential  in 
Affecting  what  corrupt  influences  resist.  The  philosophical  re- 
former did  not  suggest  depriving  the  Crown  of  its  constitutional 
right  of  granting  pensions.  He  proposed  to  limit  the  amount  to  a 
sum  which  would  now  be  considered  extravagant.  He  abstained 
from  attempting  even  the  reduction  of  exorbitant  emoluments  to 
efficient  offices.  He  did  not  think  the  great  efficient  offices  of  the 
State  overpaid.  They  were  paid  at  a  much  higher  rate  than  in  our 
own  time  ;  and  the  question  may  now  sometimes  present  itself  to 


DUNNING'S    MOTION   ON   THE    INFLUENCE   OF   CROWN.       225 

dispassionate  minds,  whether  they  are  not  underpaid.  The  reasons 
which  Burke  then  gave  for  not  putting  the  service  of  the  public  to 
auction,  and  knocking  it  down  to  those  who  will  execute  it  cheapest, 
is  of  wider  application  now,  when  larger  expenses  are  attached  to 
the  holders  of  office  with  comparatively  small  salaries,  than  in  days 
when  statesmen  in  power  might  accumulate  fortunes  out  of  the 
profits  of  place.  It  is  an  honourable  characteristic  of  public  service 
in  England  that  ambition  and  the  lucre  of  gain  have  ceased  to  go 
together  in  rendering  power  attractive.  An  honourable  and  fair 
payment  for  service  is  grudged  by  none  but  the  wildest  self-styled 
reformers.  Burke  did  not  go  too  far  when  he  said  that,  "  if  men 
were  willing  to  serve  in  such  situations  without  salary,  they  ought 
not  to  be  permitted  to  do  it.  Ordinary  service  must  be  secured  by 
the  motives  to  ordinary  integrity." 

Burke's  proposals  were  so  temperate,  and  so  incapable  of  being 
refuted  by  argument,  that  lord  North  offered  no  opposition  to  the 
reception  of  the  first  Bill  which  was  founded  upon  them.  Other 
members  were  ready  to  go  further  than  Burke.  Sir  George  Savile, 
on  the  1 5th  of  February,  moved  for  an  account  of  all  places  for  life 
or  lives,  whether  held  by  patent  or  otherwise ;  and  also  for  an 
account  of  all  subsisting  pensions,  granted  by  the  Crown,  during 
pleasure  or  otherwise.  The  motion  was  opposed  by  lord  Nugent, 
upon  the  ground  that  many  reduced  gentry  enjoyed  his  majesty's 
private  bounty,  and  would  not  like  their  names  to  be  made  public 
— "  many  lady  Bridgets,  lady  Marys,  and  lady  Jennys."  Lord 
North  proposed  an  amendment,  limiting  the  account  to  pensions 
payable  at  the  Exchequer.  The  whole  amount  payable  under  the 
name  of  pensions,  he  said,  did  not  exceed  ,£50,000.  To  publish  a 
list  would  "  prepare  a  feast  for  party-writers,  and  furnish  materials 
for  magazines  and  newspapers."  Happy  is  the  government  that 
does  not  shrink  from  the  eye  of  magazines  and  newspapers  !  Lord 
North  carried  his  amendment  only  by  a  majority  of  two  in  a  full 
House.  The  Session  was  a  series  of  parliamentary  conflicts,  some 
conducted  with  personal  acrimony  which  involved  the  ridiculous 
arbitrement  of  duelling.  A  Bill  was  carried  in  the  House  of  Com- 
mons against  contractors  sitting  in  Parliament,  which  was  rejected 
in  the  House  of  Lords.  Burke's  own  Bill  encountered  every  ob- 
struction in  its  progress  through  Committee  ;  and  the  Session  was 
concluded  without  any  practical  result  of  the  great  statesman's 
incontrovertible  exposition  of  abuses  which  agitated  the  minds  of 
a  whole  people. 

The  6th  of  April  is  described  as  a  day  which  "  was  to  distin- 
VOL.  VI.— 15 


225  HISTORY   OF    ENGLAND. 

guish  the  present  Session  from  every  other  since  the  Revolution."  * 
It  was  a  day  that  might  have  brought  back  to  some  persons, 
whether  of  those  who  dreaded  or  those  who  hoped  for  change, 
recollections  of  the  Long  Parliament.  Another,  and  perhaps  a 
fiercer,  conflict  between  prerogative  and  the  people  might  have 
appeared  at  hand.  Charles  Fox  harangued  the  petitioners  of 
Westminster  in  the  Hall ;  and  resolutions  were  carried  for  annual 
parliaments,  and  an  addition  of  a  hundred  knights  of  the  shire  to 
the  representation.  Tumults  were  expected  ;  and  bodies  of  guards 
were  in  readiness  in  the  neighbourhood  of  the  Houses.  Tumult 
there  was  none.  The  Order  of  the  Day  was  for  taking  into  con- 
sideration the  petitions  of  the  people  of  England — petitions  which 
were  so  numerously  signed  as  to  occupy  "  such  an  immense 
quantity  of  parchment,  as  seemed  rather  calculated  to  bury  than  to 
cover  the  Speaker's  table."!  In  a  Committee  of  the  whole  House 
Mr.  Dunning  rose.  The  general  prayer  of  the  petitions  was  for  a 
reform  in  the  public  expenditure  ;  and  for  limiting  and  restraining 
the  increasing  influence  of  the  Crown.  He  passed  a  splendid 
eulogium  upon  Mr.  Burke's  Bill,  which,  when  first  proposed, 
received  the  approbation  of  every  individual  in  that  House.  A 
different  feeling  was  soon  indicated — a  temper  and  disposition 
which  originated  out  of  the  House,  and  not  within  those  walls. 
Ministers  have  now  said  that  the  influence  of  the  Crown  is  not  too 
much ;  that  it  is  not  competent  for  the  House  to  inquire  into  the 
expenditure  of  the  Civil  List.  He  would  bring  both  these  points 
fairly  to  issue.  He  first  moved,  "  That  it  is  the  opinion  of  this 
Committee  that  the  influence  of  the  Crown  has  increased,  is 
increasing,  and  ought  to  be  diminished."  The  resistance  offered 
to  the  motion  was  feeble  and  indirect.  One  of  its  immediate 
consequences  was  to  disturb  lord  North  from  his  usual  placidity. 
He  accused  the  Opposition  of  pursuing  measures  likely  to  overturn 
the  Constitution.  There  was  immense  confusion,  amidst  the  cry 
of  "take  down  the  words."  The  motion  was  carried  by  233  against 
215.  Another  motion,  that  it  is  competent  to  the  House  to  examine 
into  and  correct  abuses  in  the  expenditure  of  the  Civil  List,  as  well 
as  in  every  other  branch  of  the  public  revenue,  was  agreed  to 
without  a  division.  A  third  motion,  that  it  was  the  duty  of  the 
House  to  provide  a  remedy  for  the  abuses  complained  of  in  the 
petitions,  was  also  agreed  to.  Contrary  to  the  ordinary  usage,  the 
resolutions  were  reported  before  the  House  adjourned.  Only  nine 
county  members  voted  with  the  government.  "  The  exultation 
and  triumph  on  one  side  of  the  House  was  only  equalled  by  the 

*  "Annual  Register,"  1780,  p.  164.  t    Ibid. 


DECREASING   STRENGTH    OF   THE   OPPOSITION.  227 

evident  depression  and  dismay  which  prevailed  on  the  side  of  ad- 
ministration  The  system  of  the  Court  was  shaken  to  its 

foundations."  *  The  king  the  next  day  expressed  his  belief  to  lord 
North  that  the  Resolutions  could  not  be  regarded  as  personal  to 
the  minister,  and  adds,  "  I  wish  I  did  not  feel  at  whom  they  were 
personally  levelled."  On  the  i8th  of  April,  Dunning  made  another 
motion,  that  it  is  incompatible  with  the  independence  of  parliament 
that  persons  holding  certain  offices  about  the  Court  should  sit  in 
Parliament.  This  was  carried  only  by  a  majority  of  21 5  to  213. 
The  king  exults  that  "  things  begin  to  wear  a  better  aspect.  Lord 
North  shall  see  that  there  is  at  least  one  person  willing  to  preserve 
unspoiled  the  most  beautiful  Constitution  that  ever  was  framed." 
The  minority  rapidly  gained  strength,  and  soon  became  a  large 
majority.  Abstract  propositions  had  been  carried.  The  practical 
measures  which  were  to  render  them  of  effect  were  rejected.  On 
the  i8th  of  May,  the  most  important  clauses  in  Burke's  Bill  were 
lost  in  Committee.  The  king  has  triumphed.  "  You  cannot  doubt," 
he  writes  to  lord  North,  "  that  I  received  with  pleasure  the  account 
of  Mr.  Burke's  Bill  having  been  defeated."  His  majesty  was  look- 
ing to  a  new  Parliament  to  continue  the  abuses  that  were  odious 
to  the  nation,  or,  as  it  appeared  to  the  royal  mind,  "  to  keep  the 
present  Constitution  of  the  country  in  its  pristine  lustre." 

According  to  the  theory  of  a  narrow-minded  king,  the  pristine 
lustre  of  the  Constitution  would  have  been  shorn  of  its  beams,  if 
fifty  useless  places  had  not  been  held  by  members  of  parliament, 
to  do  the  bidding  of  the  Court  without  the  slightest  reference  to 
the  interests  of  the  nation.  According  to  the  theory  of  a  large 
section  of  a  somewhat  intolerant  public,  the  Protestant  succession 
would  have  lost  the  best  part  of  its  value,  if  English  Roman  Catho- 
lics were  allowed  to  hold  property  in  land;  if  their  spiritual  in- 
structors were  not  subject  to  the  penalties  of  treason  or  felony ;  if 
a  Protestant  son  could  no  longer  eject  his  Papist  father  from  his 
estate.  These  severities  of  the  Statutes  of  the  tenth  and  eleventh 
of  William  III.  had  ceased  to  be  applied  ;  but  they  existed  as  a 
temptation  to  informers  to  extort  money  from  the  timid,  and  as  a 
stigma  upon  the  loyal  and  peaceful.  In  1778,  upon  the  motion  of 
Savile,  seconded  by  Dunning,  these  obsolete  penalties  were  re- 
pealed, with  the  approbation  of  men  of  all  parties.  The  Acts  of 
William  III.,  dating  before  the  Union  with  Scotland,  did  not  affect 
the  position  of  Roman  Catholics  there ;  and  it  was  subsequently 
contemplated  to  repeal  a  Statute  of  the  Scottish  Parliament,  which 
was  as  odious  to  right-thinking  persons  as  the  enactments  of  the 

*  "'Annual  Register,"  p.  171. 


228  HISTORY   OF   ENGLAND. 

days  when  Popery  was  the  great  terror  of  England.  The  proceed* 
ings  of  the  parliament  in  1778  stirred  up  the  fanaticism  of  Edin- 
burgh and  Glasgow  at  the  beginning  of  1779.  Riots  took  place  in 
Edinburgh.  Houses  of  reputed  Roman  Catholics  were  assailed 
and  damaged.  A  house  where  Catholics  assembled  for  worship 
was  set  on  fire.  Those  who  by  speech  or  writing  advocated  free- 
dom of  opinion,  were  threatened  with  vengeance  ;  the  brutal  zealots 
selecting  as  one  of  the  objects  of  their  hostility  their  distinguished 
countryman,  the  historian  Robertson.  A  Protestant  Association 
and  Committee  was  set  up  in  Scotland  ;  and  a  silly  nobleman,  lord 
George  Gordon,  was  chosen  as  its  President.  This  fanatic  had  sat 
in  Parliament  for  several  years,  raving  and  gesticulating  when  any 
debate  excited  his  monomania.  Contemptible  as  he  was  in  intel- 
lect, he  acquired  some  consideration  from  the  position  he  had 
obtained  as  the  leader  of  a  body  of  people,  large  in  numbers  and 
daneerous  in  their  enthusiasm.  The  Protestant  Associations  of 

o 

Scotland  had  multiplied  in  England.  On  the  first  day  of  the  Ses- 
sion in  November, 1 779,  lord  George  Gordon  declared  that  the  in- 
dulgences given  to  Papists  had  alarmed  the  whole  country.  He 
did  not  speak  his  own  sentiments  only.  Government  should  find  a 
hundred  and  twenty  thousand  men  at  his  back,  who  would  avow 
and  support  them,  and  whose  warmth  of  spirit  was  still  greater 
than  his  own. 

The  contempt  in  which  the  public  character  of  lord  George 
Gordon  was  regarded  appears  to  have  shut  the  eyes  of  the  govern- 
ment to  the  danger  of  his  proceedings.  In  the  House  of  Commons 
he  was  viewed  as  a  silly  bore.  He  was  complimented  as  being  "  a 
staunch  Whig,  an  enemy  to  the  American  war,  and  a  friend  to  the 
liberties  of  the  people ; "  but  the  same  laudatory  member  said,  "he 
could  not  bear  to  see  the  noble  lord  render  himself  a  laughing- 
stock and  a  make-game  to  the  whole  house.  He  had  got  a  twist  in 
his  head."*  He  was  endured,  probably,  from  his  high  connexion, 
being  the  brother  of  the  duke  of  Gordon ;  and  for  this,  we  must 
presume,  the  king  had  patience  to  hear  him  indoctrinate  his  ma- 
jesty with  a  pamphlet,  the  reading  of  which  went  on  till  night  put 
an  end  to  the  audience.  The  twist  in  lord  George's  head  did  not 
the  less  fit  him  to  be  a  demagogue.  He  calculated  that  a  display 
of  physical  force  would  serve  his  cause  better  than  argument  in 
Parliament.  On  the  29th  of  May  he  called  a  public  meeting  at 
Coachmaker's  Hall;  where  he  harangued  a  great  audience  about 
the  dangers  of  Popery ;  and  proposed  a  Resolution  that  the  whole 
body  of  the  Protestant  Association  should  meet  in  St.  George's 

*  Mr.  Turner— April  n— "  Parliamentary  Debates,"  vol.  xxi.  col-  387. 


LORD  GEORGE  GORDON.  229 

Fields  on  the  following  Friday,  to  accompany  him  to  the  House  of 
Commons  to  'deliver  their  Petition.  If  less  than  twenty  thousand 
persons  should  attend  him,  he  would  not  present  it.  He  proposed 
that  they  should  assemble  in  four  divisions — the  Protestants  of 
London  the  first,  of  Westminster  the  second,  of  Southwark  the 
third,  and  the  Scots  resident  in  the  metropolis  the  fourth  ;  and 
that  every  real  Protestant  should  come  with  a  blue  cockade  on  his 
hat.  On  Friday,  the  2nd  of  June,  a  vast  assemblage  was  gathered 
together  in  St.  George's  Fields — fifty  or  sixty  thousand  persons 
according  to  most  accounts.  Their  leader  marshalled  them  in 
three  columns, — one  to  march  over  London  Bridge,  another  over 
Blackfriars  Bridge,  and  a  third  over  Westminster  Bridge,  headed 
by  himself.  At  half-past  two  this  formidable  body  was  assembled 
in  Palace  Yard,  and  intercepted  all  the  avenues  of  Parliament. 
The  quiet  which  had  distinguished  their  march  now  took  a  more 
congenial  attitude  of  insult  to  every  obnoxious  Peer  or  Commoner. 
They  filled  the  lobbies  ;  and  twice  attempted  to  force  the  doors  of 
each  House.  The  fanatic  rose  in  his  place,  and  presented  the 
petition,  praying  for  a  repeal  of  the  Act  passed  in  favour  of  Roman 
Catholics.  He  moved  that  the  petition  be  referred  to  a  Committee 
of  the  whole  House.  This  necessarily  produced  a  debate.  For 
several  hours  the  members  were  unable  to  go  out,  the  lobby  being 
filled  with  a  furious  mob.  Lord  George  went  several  times  to  the 
top  of  the  gallery  stairs ;  harangued  the  people,  telling  them  that 
their  petition  was  likely  to  meet  with  ill  success  ;  and  pointed  out 
to  their  vengeance  such  members'as  had  spoken  against  its  con- 
sideration. Expostulation  was  in  vain.  At  last,  colonel  Gordon, 
a  near  relative,  went  up  to  him,  and  said,  "  My  lord  George,  do  you 
intend  to  bring  your  rascally  adherents  into  the  House  of  Com- 
mons ?  If  you  do,  the  first  man  of  them  that  enters — I  will  plunge 
my  sword  not  into  him,  but  into  your  body."  A  party  of  horse- 
guards  at  length  arrived,  with  a  magistrate  at  their  head  ;  and 
eventually  the  lobby  was  cleared,  and  the  rabble  went  home.  The 
House  then  divided,  six  for  the  petition,  and  a  hundred  and  ninety- 
two  against  it.  During  this  scene,  the  terror  in  the  House  of 
Lords  was  kept  up  by  the  constant  arrival  of  Peers  announcing  the 
insults  to  which  some  of  their  body  were  exposed  in  the  streets, 
and  exhibiting  the  outrages  which  had  been  inflicted  upon  them- 
selves. Dishevelled  hair,  clothes  covered  with  mud,  proclaimed 
that  the  hootings  in  Palace-Yard  were  not  those  of  a  good-tempered 
English  mob.  The  disgusting  excesses  of  that  day  had  an  influ« 
ence,  and  not  altogether  an  unnatural  influence,  upon  the  political 
condition  of  the  British  people  for  many  years.  Most  inoppor- 


230  HISTORY   OF   ENGLAND. 

tunely,  whilst  the  strongest  evidence  of  popular  ignorance  was 
before  the  eyes  of  Parliament,  the  duke  of  Richmond,  according 
to  notice,  rose  to  introduce  a  Bill,  for  declaring  and  restoring  the 
natural,  inalienable,  and  equal  right  of  all  the  Commons  of  Great 
Britain  (infants,  persons  of  insane  mind,  and  criminals  incapaci- 
tated by  law,  only  excepted)  to  vote  in  the  election  of  their  repre- 
sentatives in  Parliament ;  for  regulating  the  mode  and  manner  of 
such  elections ;  and  for  restoring  annual  Parliaments.  The  duke 
said  that  he  found  himself  exceedingly  unhappy  that  he  should 
have  to  trouble  their  lordships  with  a  motion  in  the  situation  in 
which  they  were  at  present.  He  made  a  speech,  necessarily  under 
great  embarrassment ;  for  the  practical  answer  to  his  proposition 
was  the  tumult  in  Palace  Yard.  The  men  who  were  to  exercise 
the  natural,  inalienable,  and  equal  right  of  voting  in  the  election  of 
their  representatives,  were  interrupting  the  freedom  of  debate, 
demanding  the  re-enactment  of  barbarous  laws,  at  the  bidding  of  a 
madman.  The  Houses  adjourned  without  further  violence,  on  that 
night,  in  the  neighbourhood  of  Parliament.  But  the  spirit  of  bigotry 
took  another  direction.  The  ministers  of  Sardinia  and  Bavaria 
had  their  chapels  sanctioned  by  law  and  the  custom  of  nations. 
These  were  set  on  fire,  and  their  fittings  plundered  and  destroyed. 
Thirteen  of  the  rioters  were  apprehended,  upon  the  arrival  of  the 
military,  and  were  taken  to  Newgate. 

Saturday,  the  3rd,  was  a  day  of  comparative  tranquillity.  But 
busy  agents  of  mischief  were  at  work ;  and  on  Sunday  afternoon, 
Catholic  chapels  in.  Moorfields  were  beset,  and  their  altars  and 
pulpits  were  torn  down  and  burnt.  On  the  Monday,  the  supineness 
of  the  magistrates,  and  the  want  of  any  efficient  system  of  police, 
encouraged  the  No-Popery  fanatics — joined  by  the  idlers,  the 
drunkards,  and  the  thieves  that  congregate  in  a  great  city — to  re- 
newed attacks  upon  religious  edifices  and  private  houses.  The 
indifference  of  men  high  in  office  to  these  continued  outrages  was 
incomprehensible.  Dr.  Johnson  writes  to  Mrs.  Thrale  :  "  On  Mon- 
day, Mr.  Strahan,  who  had  been  insulted,  spoke  to  lord  Mansfield, 
who  had,  I  think,  been  insulted  too,  of  the  licentiousness  of  the 
populace  ;  and  his  lordship  treated  it  as  a  very  slight  irregularity."* 
On  that  Monday  the  house  of  sir  George  Savile  was  gutted.  The 
king  writes  to  lord  North  that  he  had  given  directions  to  the  two 
Secretaries  of  State  to  take  measures  for  preventing  riot  on  the 
morrow.  His  majesty  does  not  appear  to  have  contemplated  any 
immediate  danger ;  for  he  says,  "  This  tumult  must  be  got  the  bet- 
ter of,  or  it  will  encourage  designing  men  to  use  it  as  a  precedent 
*  Boswell's  "  Life,"  ed.  1848,  p.  648. 


RIOTS. — CHAPELS    BURNT.  231 

for  assembling  the  people  on  other  occasions."  On  Tuesday,  the 
two  Houses  again  met.  Detachments  of  guards  prevented  any 
great  outbreak  in  the  neighbourhood  of  Parliament ;  though  one 
of  the  ministers,  lord  Stormont,  was  injured  by  the  mob.  Burke 
got  into  their  hands ;  but  his  courageous  remonstrances  produced 
the  effect  by  which  a  high  spirit  generally  secures  its  ascendancy 
over  an  English  multitude,  ignorant  but  not  blood-thirsty.  The 
House  of  Commons  agreed  in  a  Resolution  that  they  would  take  the 
petitions  into  consideration  as  soon  as  the  tumults  should  subside. 
There  was  no  appearance  that  they  would  subside  quickly.  The 
more  lawless  and  desperate  now  came  forth  in  greater  numoers ; 
and  began  to  regard  London  as  a  city  to  be  sacked.  About  six 
o'clock  on  that  summer  evening  a  fierce  multitude  appeared  in  front 
of  Newgate,  and  demanded  of  Mr.  Akerman,  the  keeper  of  the 
prison,  the  release  of  the  rioters  who  had  been  committed  for  the 
destruction  of  the  chapels  of  the  foreign  ambassadors.  Their  de- 
mand was  firmly  refused ;  and  then  Mr.  Akerman's  private  house 
was  set  on  fire.  The  present  building  of  Newgate  was  then  only 
partially  completed.  The  greatest  number  of  the  prisoners  were 
confined  in  the  wretched  cells  of  the  old  prison,  which  had  existed 
in  the  time  of  Charles  II.  It  was,  therefore,  easily  assailed  by  a 
furious  mob,  who  thundered  at  the  entrances  with  sledge  hammers 
and  pickaxes  ;  and  then  dragged  out  the  furniture  of  the  keeper's 
house,  to  pile  the  tables  and  chairs  against  the  prison  doors  and 
set  them  on  fire.  A  way  was  thus  soon  forced.  The  whole  build- 
ing was  quickly  in  a  blaze.  The  felons  without  rushed  through  the 
flames  to  release  the  felons  within  ;  and  that  night  there  were  three 
hundred  criminals  loose  in  the  streets.  The  prison  of  Clerken- 
well  was  also  broken  open,  and  the  prisoners  released.  The  char- 
acter of  the  riots  was  now  altered.  The  objects  of  attack  were 
the  administrators  of  the  law.  The  houses  of  three  metropolitan 
magistrates  were  sacked.  Midnight  came ;  when  a  yell  of  havoc 
was  raised  before  the  house  of  the  Chief  Justice  in  Bloomsbury 
Square ;  and,  leaving  scarcely  time  for  lord  and  lady  Mansfield  to 
escape,  the  frantic  miscreants  broke  in,  threw  furniture,  pictures, 
books,  manuscripts,  into  the  street,  where  they  made  a  fire  which 
they  fed  with  these  valuables,  many  of  them  too  precious  for  any 
money  estimate  of  their  value.  There  perished  the  law  library  of 
the  greatest  lawyer  of  his  age  ;  enriched  with  his  own  notes  ;  and 
with  that  library  was  destroyed  the  correspondence  of  half  a  cen- 
tury. The  mansion  itself  became  a  ruin  in  this  fiery  havoc.  A  de- 
tachment of  guards  was  at  hand  ;  but  the  officer  did  not  dare  to  act 
without  the  orders  of  a  magistrate,  and  the  magistrates,  it  was 
given  in  evidence,  had  all  run  away. 


232  HISTORY   OF   ENGLAND. 

"  Wednesday,  the  7th,  was  the  fatal  day."  *  Walpole  writes 
to  a  friend,  "You  may  like  to  know  one  is  alive,  after  a  massacre, 
and  the  conflagration  of  a  capital — the  most  horrible  sight  I  ever 
beheld,  and  which,  for  six  hours  together,  I  expected  to  end  in  half 
the  town  being  reduced  to  ashes."  f  The  first  great  operation  of 
the  morning  was  to  attack  to  Bank  of  England.  Two  attempts 
were  made  to  force  an  entrance ;  but  the  building  was  well  guarded 
by  parties  of  soldiers,  and  the  assailants  retreated  upon  the  first 
volley.  The  shops  were  shut.  The  terrified  inhabitants  of  the 
great  thoroughfares  chalked  "  No  Popery  "  on  their  shutters.  The 
mob  appeared  to  have  the  lives  and  property  of  a  population  of  a 
million  wholly  in  their  power.  Yet  their  numbers  were  not  every- 
where formidable  in  comparison  with  the  mischief  they  effected. 
Johnson  observed  not  more  than  a  hundred  men  plundering  the 
Session  House  in  the  Old  Bailey — leisurely,  in  full  security,  as  men 
lawfully  employed.  This  "  full  security,"  which  Johnson  imputes 
to  "  the  cowardice  of  a  commercial  city,"  was  really  to  be  ascribed 
to  the  extraordinary  timidity  of  the  king's  responsible  advisers. 
London  and  the  neighbourhood  were  full  of  soldiers,  who  had  been 
sent  for  from  distant  parts.  But  there  was  hesitation  about  their 
employment.  There  was  a  prevailing  notion — a  very  proper 
scruple  under  ordinary  circumstances — that  the  military  could  not 
act  except  under  the  direction  of  a  magistrate  ;  and  there  was  a 
mistaken  belief  that  they  could  not  fire  until  an  hour  had  expired 
after  the  reading  of  the  Riot  Act.  The  king  himself  called  a 
Council  on  Wednesday ;  and  submitted  the  question  to  them  as  to 
the  construction  of  the  Riot  Act.  In  1768  verdicts  had  been  found 
by  juries  against  officers  and  soldiers  who  had  put  down  riots  with 
the  loss  of  life.  The  Council  would  not  decide  upon  a  doubtful 
point  of  law.  The  king  turned  to  Wedderburn,  the  attorney-gene- 
ral, and  desired  his  opinion.  He  immediately  declared  thatmilitary 
force  might,  be  exercised,  if  no  other  means  of  restraint  are  effectual, 
when  a  tumultuous  assemblage  are  engaged  in  committing  a  felony, 
such  as  setting  fire  to  a  house.  This  opinion  was  subsequently 
confirmed  by  lord  Mansfield  in  the  House  of  Lords,  upon  a  debate 
as  to  the  employment  of  that  military  power  which  had  saved  the 
capital :  "  The  military  have  been  called  in,  and  very  wisely  called 
in,  not  as  soldiers  but  as  citizens  :  no  matter  whether  their  coats 
be  red  or  brown,  they  have  been  called  in  aid  of  the  law.';  The 
opinion  of  Wedderburn  satisfied  the  doubts  of  the  Council.  The 
king  declared  that  to  have  been  his  own  opinion ;  and  a  Proclama- 

*  Walpole's  "  Last  Journals."  -f  Letter  tr  Cole. 


THE   RIOTS   STOPPED   BY   MILITARY   FORCE.  233 

tion  was  immediately  issued,  commanding  all  householders  to  keep 
within  doors,  with  their  servants  and  apprentices,  and  announcing 
that  the  king's  officers  were  now  authorized  to  repress  the  riots  by 
an  immediate  exercise  of  force.  The  decision  did  not  come  an 
hour  too  soon.  On  that  evening,  when  every  decent  citizen  was 
•  hurrying  home  to  obey  the  proclamation,  London  was  on  fire  in 
thirty-six  different  places.  "  One  might  see,"  says  Johnson,  "  the 
glare  of  conflagration  fill  the  sky  from  many  parts.  The  sight  was 
dreadful."  The  most  terrible  scene  was  in  Holborn,  where  the 
distillery  of  Mr.  Langdale,  a  Roman  Catholic,  was  set  on  fire  ;  and 
the  unrectified  spirits  pouring  into  the  streets  were  lapped  up  by 
the  wretched  crowds  of  men,  women,  and  children, -who  perished  in 
helpless  drunkenness  amidst  liquid  fire  or  falling  timbers.  The 
military  poured  into  every  street  where  there  was  tumult.  If  the 
command  of  the  officer  to  disperse  was  not  obeyed,  they  fired  at 
once.  Through  that  terrible  night  sleep  was  banished  from  a 
metropolis  wholly  unused  to  scenes  of  anarchy.  The  next  morn- 
ing all  was  quiet.  Nothing  remained  to  do  but  to  bury  the  dead, 
to  attend  the  wounded,  and  to  fill  the  remaining  gaols  with  misera- 
ble prisoners. 

It  is  unnecessary  for  us  to  pursue  the  painful  history  of  these 
disgraceful  riots  into  the  subsequent  details,  which  afforded  abun- 
dant matter  for  the  meagre  newspapers  of  the  time.  Lord  George 
Gordon  was  committed  to  the  Tower  on  a  charge  of  high  treason ; 
and,  being  tried  early  in  the  following  year,  was  so  successfully 
defended  by  Erskine,  then  rising  into  high  reputation,  that  the  jury 
returned  a  verdict  of  acquittal.  Of  the  miserable  rioters,  a  hundred 
and  thirty-five  were  tried  in  Middlesex  and  Surrey,  of  whom  about 
half  were  convicted,  and  twenty-one  were  executed.  The  Session 
of  Parliament  was  approaching  to  a  close.  Matters  of  the  greatest 
importance  had  been  agitated  without  any  practical  results.  Pro- 
posals for  Economical  Reform,  which  had  been  welcomed  at  the 
beginning  of  the  Session,  were  rejected  or  frittered  away  during 
its  progress.  Parliamentary  Reform  came  to  be  regarded  as  an 
impossible  theory.  The  contemporary  historian  describes  this 
period  with  a  calm  judgment :  "  It  may  be  said  with  confidence, 
that  so  great  a  number  of  important  affairs  were  never  agitated  in 
any  one  Session.  The  riot,  in  the  close,  threw  a  general  damp 
upon  all  endeavours  whatever  for  reformation,  however  unconnect- 
ed with  its  particular  object.  Popular  fury  seemed,  for  that  time 
at  least,  the  greatest  of  all  possible  evils.  Administration  then 
gathered,  and  afterwards  procured,  no  small  degree  of  power,  from 
a  tumult  which  appeared  to  threaten  the  subversion  of  all  govern- 


234  HISTORY   OF   ENGLAND. 

ment."  *  The  Parliament  was  prorogued  on  the  8th  of  July  ;  and 
on  the  ist  of  September  it  was  dissolved. 

During  the  domestic  excitement  that  had  lasted  through  the 
Session  of  Parliament,  the  external  affairs  of  the  country  were 
regarded  with  comparative  indifference.  The  dread  of  invasion 
had  passed  away.  The  war  with  America  appeared  to  drag  on 
without  any  decisive  results.  Gibraltar  was  invested  by  the 
Spaniards  ;  but  the  siege  had  not  as  yet  assumed  the  interesting 
character  which  the  resolute  defence  of  the  key  of  the  Mediterra- 
nean subsequently  commanded.  The  naval  ascendancy  of  Great 
Britain  was,  however,  manifested  in  a  way  that  gave  the  nation 
confidence  that  its  ships  could  be  well  manned  and  bravely  led  to 
battle.  Sir  George  Rodney,  on  the  i6th  of  January,  engaged  the 
Spanish  admiral  off  Cape  St.  Vincent,  and  obtained  a  complete 
victory,  having  captured  four  ships  of  the  line,  and  destroyed  four 
others.  He  then  proceeded  to  the  relief  of  Gibraltar.  Sailing  to 
the  West  Indies,  he  there  encountered  a  combined  French  and 
Spanish  fleet,  but  was  unable  to  bring  them  to  a  general  engage- 
ment. But  the  vigilance  of  the  Spanish  government  inflicted  a 
severe  blow  upon  our  mercantile  marine.  Knowing  when  the  East 
India  and  West  India  fleets  would  be  off  the  Azores,  with  a  convoy 
of  only  two  ships  of  war,  a  powerful  squadron  intercepted  them, 
and  carried  sixty  sail,  laden  with  valuable  merchandize,  as  prizes 
into  Cadiz.  The  Dutch  and  English  governments  were  beginning 
to  squabble  about  violations  of  neutrality,  which  the  next  year  gave 
occasion  to  a  war  with  Holland.  The  maritime  claims  of  England 
produced  also  an  "  Armed  Neutrality  "  between  Russia,  Sweden, 
and  Denmark,  which  threatened  danger.  At  this  period  it  would 
have  been  difficult  to  affirm  that  the  governmentof  George  III.  had 
a  friend  in  Europe. 

We  have  now  to  return  to  the  events  of  the  war  in  America. 
At  the  end  of  December,  1779,  general  Clinton,  with  a  force  of  five 
thousand  men,  sailed  from  New  York  in  the  fleet  of  admiral  Ar- 
buthnot,  for  the  purpose  of  investing  Charleston,  in  South  Carolina. 
The  American  forces  within  this  important  place  were  under  the 
command  of  general  Lincoln ;  who,  with  the  assistance  of  French 
engineers,  had  constructed  some  formidable  defences.  The  pro- 
gress of  the  expedition  was  delayed  by  bad  weather.  It  was  the 
first  of  April  before  the  British  army  broke  ground  before  Charles- 
ton. The  siege  was  pursued  with  great  vigour  and  ability,  under 
the  direction  of  Clinton,  who  had  detached  lord  Cornwallis,  with  a 
large  force,  to  cut  off  the  communication  between  the  garrison  and 

*  "  Annual  Register,"  1780,  p.  280*. 


WAR   IN   AMERICA.  235 

the  interior.  An  assault  was  contemplated ;  but  on  the  I2th  of  May, 
Lincoln  capitulated.  The  surrender  of  six  thousand  men,  with 
four  hundred  pieces  of  cannon,  and  large  magazines,  was  an  im- 
portant triumph  for  the  British  commanders,  and  gave  a  renewed 
spirit  to  the  war.  General  Clinton  in  June  returned  to  New  York, 
leaving  lord  Cornwallis  in  command.  He  had  only  four  thousand 
regular  troops  to  defend  Charleston,  to  contend  against  a  probable 
invasion  of  the  province,  and  to  repress  a  spirit  of  disaffection 
amongst  the  inhabitants.  It  is  to  be  regretted  that  he  considered 
it  within  the  line  of  his  duty  to  make  severe  examples  of  those 
Americans  who,  from  those  shifting  influences  of  fear  and  hope 
which  mark  such  contests,  deserted  the  royal  cause  for  which  they 
had  engaged  their  services.  The  laws  of  war  certainly  justified 
the  punishment  of  desertion ;  but  the  peculiar  circumstances  of 
this  war  called  for  the  exercise  of  great  forbearance,  except  in  cases 
of  signal  treachery.  The  American  army  which  was  approaching 
Charleston  was  under  the  command  of  general  Gates.  The  van- 
guards of  the  two  armies  became  engaged  at  Camden  on  the  i6th 
of  August,  when  the  Americans  sustained  a  complete  defeat. 
Some  of  the  prisoners  taken  in  this  battle  were  hanged,  they  hav- 
ing manifested  their  change  of  opinion  by  having  British  protec- 
tions on  their  persons.  Death  was  denounced  against  all  militia- 
men who,  having  served  in  the  British  armies,  had  joined  the  rev- 
olutionists. Estates  were  threatened  to  be  sequestered  of  those 
who  had  opposed  the  British  interests  in  the  province.  American 
citizens  of  Charleston  were  forcibly  removed  on  board  ship  to  St. 
Augustine,  in  Florida.  Complaint  was  made  of  this  proceeding ; 
and  Cornwallis  thus  defends  it :  "I  have  only  to  say  that  the  inso- 
lence of  their  behaviour,  the  threats  with  which  they,  in  the  most 
daring  manner,  endeavoured  to  intimidate  our  friends  ;  the  infa- 
mous falsehoods  which  they  propagated  through  the  town  and 
country,  and  the  correspondence  which  they  constantly  kept  up 
with  the  enemy,  rendered  it  indispensably  necessary  that  they 
should  be  either  closely  confined  or  sent  out  of  the  province.  "  * 
In  a  letter  to  Clinton  of  the  zgth  of  August,  Cornwallis  details  how 
he  had  ordered  militia-men,  who  had  been  enrolled  and  then  revolt- 
ed, to  be  hung  up.  f  He  makes  constant  complaints  to  American 
generals  of  their  severities.  Washington  writes  a  letter  of  remon- 
strance against  the  severities  of  Cornwallis,  which  he  addresses  to 
Clinton ;  and  Clinton  replies,  that  it  has  been  his  invariable  desire 
to  soften  the  horrors  of  war,  as  it  was  the  desire  of  every  officer  in 
his  majesty's  service  ;  "  but  proper  punishments  upon  guilty  per- 

*  "  Correspondence  of  Cornwallis,"  vol.  i.  p.  72.  t  Ibid.  p.  61. 


2$6  HISTORY   OF  ENGLAND. 

sons  may  become  sometimes  necessary.  "  *  Sir  Henry  takes 
rather  a  high  tone  at  the  notion  of  any  remonstrance  being  ad- 
dressed to  him :  "  I  desire  to  conclude  this  subject  by  inform- 
ing you,  sir,  that  I  esteem  myself  accountable  for  my  public 
conduct  to  his  majesty  the  king,  to  my  country,  and  my  own  con- 
science. "  Lord  Rawdon,  afterwards  lord  Moira,  who  commanded 
a  post  in  connection  with  the  main  army,  appears  to  have  gone 
somewhat  beyond  the  proper  bounds  of  punishment  for  guilty  per- 
sons. He  offered  a  reward  of  ten  guineas  to  the  inhabitants  of 
the  country  if  they  would  bring  in  the  head  of  any  deserter,  and 
five  guineas  if  they  would  bring  him  in  alive.  He  justifies  his 
tneasure  as  being  merely  intended  to  terrify.  During  the  war  in 
the  Southern  States  the  severities  practised  by  both  parties  were  a 
proof  that  embittered  feelings  on  both  sides  would  endure  far  too 
long  for  the  restoration  of  a  cordial  amity,  whatever  might  be  the 
issue  of  the  war.  The  word  "  retaliation "  was  of  too  frequent 
use  by  those  in  command  ;  and  Cornwallis  himself  saw  that  the 
contest  was  assuming  a  character  in  which  it  would  "become  truly 
savage."  After  various  encounters,  each  of  the  Southern  armies 
Went  into  winter-quarters. 

Until  the  summer  of  1780  the  British  and  American  armies  in 
the  Central  States  were  comparatively  inactive.  Washington  had 
to  encounter  the  greatest  difficulties  in  the  maintenance  of  his 
troops.  During  the  absence  of  Clinton  the  royalist  forces  were 
not  strong  enough  to  attempt  any  important  movement.  The  pros- 
pect was  changed  by  the  arrival  in  July,  off  Rhode  Island,  of  a 
French  armament  of  six  thousand  men,  under  the  command  of  the 
comte  de  Rochambeau.  A  commission  of  lieutenant-general  in  the 
French  service  had  been  sent  to  Washington,  and  the  French 
troops  were  to  be  under  his  orders.  This  great  reinforcement  of 
the  Americans  landed  in  Rhode  Island.  There  were  various  delays 
which  prevented  Clinton  attacking  them.  But  a  considerable  ad- 
dition to  the  fleet  under  admiral  Arbuthnot  having  arrived  from 
England,  the  French  troops  were  effectually  blockaded  in  their 
position  at  Newport,  and  their  purpose  of  combined  operations  with 
Washington  was  prevented.  The  two  generals,  however,  arranged 
a  meeting  at  Hartford,  in  Connecticut ;  Greene  having  the  command 
of  the  American  army  during  the  temporary  absence  of  Washing- 
ton. 

Benedict  Arnold,  who  had  done  such  signal  service  against  the 
British  in   Canada,  had,  in  his  capacity  of  chief  in   Philadelphia, 
after  that  city  had  been  evacuated  by  Clinton,  been  guilty  of  some 
*  "  Correspondence  of  Cornwallis,"  vol.  i.  p.  p.  58. 


TREACHERY   OF    BENEDICT   ARNOLD.  237 

irregularity  for  which  he  had  been  reprimanded  by  a  court-martial. 
He  was  dissatisfied  with  Congress  ;  and  the  French  alliance  was 
distasteful  to  him.  Washington  recommended  his  appointment  to 
the  charge  of  West  Point,  and  other  important  posts,  commanding 
the  Hudson  ;  and  at  West  Point  he  was  stationed  in  August.  He 
had,  lono-  previously,  opened  a  secret  correspondence  with  sir 
Henry  Clinton ;  in  which  he  proposed  to  join  the  royal  army,  and 
give  possession  of  the  forts  and  their  garrisons  under  his  orders. 
The  treacherous  overture  was  accepted,  and  all  honour  and  advan- 
tage promised  to  the  traitor.  The  correspondence  was  conducted 
on  the  part  of  Clinton  by  major  John  Andre,  the  adjutant-general 
of  the  army,  who  signed  his  letters  "  John  Anderson."  Arnold 
adopted  the  signature  of  "  Gustavus."  A  meeting  between  the 
correspondents  was  proposed  to  take  place  during  the  time  when 
Washington  had  gone  to  confer  with  Rochambeau.  Clinton  con- 
sented, warning  the  ardent  young  officer  against  entering  the  Amer- 
ican lines,  carrying  papers,  or  assuming  any  disguise. 

On  the  night  of  the  2ist  of  September,  Andre  went  up  the  Hud- 
son in  the  Vulture  sloop  of  war,  and  was  conveyed  in  a  boat  to  the 
place  appointed  for  his  rendezvous  with  Arnold.  It  was  on  the 
western  bank,  on  the  neutral  ground.  The  conference  lasted  till  the 
dawn  ;  when,  to  complete  their  arrangements,  Andre  was  persuaded 
to  accompany  Arnold  to  a  house  within  the  American  lines.  When 
his  business  was  finished,  and  he  went  to  the  river  to  be  conveyed 
on  board  the  sloop,  he  found  that  it  had  been  compelled  to  drop 
down  the  Hudson  nearer  New  York.  He  returned  ;  received  a 
pass  from  Arnold,  under  his  assumed  name  of  John  Anderson ; 
changed  his  uniform  for  plain  clothes?  and  did  the  other  danger- 
ous thing  against  which  he  was  expressly  cautioned — he  received 
papers  from  Arnold,  explaining  the  state  of  the  fort  at  West  Point. 
Having  crossed  the  river,  with  the  intention  of  proceeding  on 
horseback  to  New  York,  he  had  passed  securely  through  the  Amer- 
ican lines,  and  was  again  on  neutral  ground,  when  he  was  seized  by 
three  men  of  the  American  militia.  He  was  conducted  to  their 
commander  colonel  Jameson.  The  mode  in  which  Arnold  was  in> 
formed  of  the  capture  of  Andre  does  not  very  clearly  appear,  the 
narratives  being  somewhat  conflicting ;  but,  upon  learning  the  event, 
Arnold  saw  the  immediate  necessity  of  his  own  escape  ;  and  getting 
on  board  the  sloop  which  was  to  have  secured  safety  to  Andre,  he 
reached  the  British  quarters  at  New  York.  Two  days  after,  Wash- 
ington arrived  at  Arnold's  house,  and  learnt  the  news  of  his  absence 
and  his  defection. 

On  the  return  of  Washington  to  his  camp  on  the  a8th  he  found 


23^  HISTORY   OF   ENGLAND. 

Andre  there  under  arrest.  He  had  previously  received  a  letter 
from  the  prisoner,  avowing  his  name  and  rank.  The  case  was  im- 
mediately referred  to  a  court  of  general  officers,  fourteen  in  number. 
Twelve  of  these  were  Americans,  with  whom  La  Fayette  and 
Steuben  were  associated.  The  deportment  of  the  prisoner  was 
altogether  consistent  with  the  manliness  of  a  British  officer,  and 
his  own  sense  of  honour.  He  would  commit  no  other  person.  He 
would  resort  to  no  subterfuge  to  defend  himself.  Steuben,  it  is 
reported,  was  exceedingly  afflicted  at  what  he  considered  the  inev- 
itable result.  "It  was  impossible,"  said  the  old  German,  "  to  save 
him.  He  put  us  to  no  proof;  but  in  an  open,  manly  manner,  con- 
fessed everything  but  a  premeditated  design  to  deceive."  *  The 
verdict  of  the  council  of  officers  was  that  major  Andre  ought  to  be 
considered  as  a  spy  from  the  enemy ;  and  that,  agreeably  to  the 
law  and  usage  of  nations,  it  was  their  opinion  he  ought  to  suffer 
death.  Before  the  inquiry  took  place,  Clinton  had  addressed  a 
letter  to  Washington  demanding  Andrews  release,  on  the  ground 
that  he  had  gone  ashore  with  a  flag  of  truce  sent  by  Arnold,  and 
when  arrested  was  under  the  protection  of  a  pass  which  Arnold 
had  authority  to  give.  Washington  informed  sir  Henry  of  the 
decision  to  which  the  court  had  come.  A  deputation  was  then 
sent  to  the  American  head-quarters,  who  were  received  by  Greene, 
the  president  of  the  court ;  but  their  arguments,  and  offers  to  ex- 
change any  prisoner  that  might  be  selected,  were  unavailing. 
Washington  confirmed  the  sentence  that  the  brave,  enthusiastic, 
accomplished  officer  should  die  the  death  of  a  felon.  Andre  re- 
quested to  die  as  a  soldier.  To  that  request  no  answer  was  given. 
He  made  up  his  mind,  as  expressed  in  a  touching  letter  to  sir 
Henry  Clinton,  for  any  fate  to  which  an  honest  zeal  for  the  king's 
service  might  have  devoted  him.  On  the  2nd  of  October  that  exe- 
cution took  place  under  the  warrant  of  Washington,  which  is  held 
by  a  very  just  and  right-minded  historian,  as  "  by  far  the  greatest, 
and  perhaps  the  only,  blot  in  his  most  noble  career."  f  We  are 
constrained  to  dissent  from  this  opinion ;  but  we  prefer  to  rest  our 
judgment  upon  another  authority  than  our  own.  We  extract  the 
following  passage  from  a  brief  memoir  of  Andre,  published  in  one 
of  the  earliest  miscellanies  that  was  addressed  to  the  growing  power 
to  read  amongst  the  humbler  classes  : — 

"  At  the  period  when  the  event  took  place,  a  torrent  of  indig- 
nation burst  forth  against  Washington,  who  was  charged  with  cold 
malignity,  in  thus  sacrificing  a  meritorious  officer,  in  a  manner  so 
unworthy  of  his  character.  This  is  the  tone  of  feeling  which 

*  "  Life  of  Steuben,"  p.  290.  t  Lord  Mahon's  "  History,"  vol.  vii.  p.  106. 


EXECUTION    OF    ANDRE.  239 

dictated  Anna  Seward's  monody  to  his  memory,  and  filled  the 
newspapers  of  the  day  with  every  violent  epithet.  It  is  to  be 
regretted  that  some  of  our  historians  have  adopted  this  view  of  the 
transaction.  But  highly  as  we  estimate  the  claims  of  our  lament- 
ed countryman  to  the  gratitude  of  this  nation,  we  must  acquit 
Washington  of  all  injustice  towards  him.  Major  Andre"  fell  a  sac- 
rifice to  that  ardent  zeal  which  animated  his  whole  conduct,  and 
to  the  ill-advice  which  he  received  from  Arnold.  Against  his  own 
better  judgment  and  intentions,  he  assumed  a  disguise  in  name 
and  dress,  and  took  charge  of  secret  papers  within  the  enemy's 
lines,  which  distinctly  fixed  upon  him  the  character  of  a  spy,  and 
subjected  him  to  all  the  perils  of  discovery.  His  letter  to  sir  Hen- 
ry Clinton  bears  witness  to  the  personal  kindness  he  received  from 
Washington,  who  doubtless  gave  no  reply  to  his  last  request,  in 
order  to  save  his  feelings  the  pain  of  a  refusal.  Had  that  general 
consented  to  change  the_mode  of  his  death,  he  would  have  aban- 
doned the  principle  upon  which  his  fate  was  determined.  The 
critical  posture  of  affairs  at  that  moment  compelled  the  American 
chief  to  avail  himself  of  an  event  so  important  to  his  future  suc- 
cess. The  strong  measure  he  adopted  was  designed  to  show  that 
the  contest  must  be  decided  by  force  of  arms — that  he  had  thrown 
away  the  scabbard — and  that  he  was  resolved  to  extinguish  at  a 
blow  those  intrigues  by  which  his  former  operations  had  been  be- 
trayed. As  the  success  of  major  Andre's  confederacy  with  Arnold 
would  probably  have  destroyed  the  last  hope  of  the  Revolutionists, 
so  the  terror  produced  by  his  execution,  and  the  timely  discovery 
of  Arnold's  detection,  ultimately  led  to  the  independence  of  the 
United  States."f 

*  "  Plain  Englishman,"  vol.  ii.  1821.  This  periodical  was  jointly  conducted  by  Mr. 
Locker,  the  secretary  of  Greenwich  Hospital,  and  by  the  author  of  the  "  Popular  His- 
tory." Mr.  Locker  was  selected,  as  the  friend  of  the  three  sisters  of  major  Andre1,  to  at- 
tend on  the  z8th  of  November,  1821,  as  their  representative,  when  the  remains  of  their 
brother,  disinterred  in  America,  were  placed  in  a  vault  in  Westminster  Abbey,  near  the 
cenotaph  which  had  been  erected  to  his  memory  by  command  of  George  III.  The  me- 
moir of  Andre,  containing  the  passage  we  quote,  was  written  by  Mr.  Locker  immediately 
after  the  ceremony  which  he  had  attended. 


340  HISTORY   OF   ENGLAND. 


CHAPTER  XIV. 

Elections  of  1780.— Burke  rejected  for  Bristol.— War  with  Holland.— French  attack  upon 
Jersey.— Capture  of  St.  Eustatius  by  Rodney. — Privateering.— Action  off  the  Dog- 
ger Bank. — Difficulties  of  Washington's  army. — Mutinies. — Cornwallis  in  the  Caro-< 
Unas.  —He  is  defeated  at  Cowpens. — His  victory  at  Guilford. — Cornwallis  marches 
into  Virginia.— Fleet  of  De  Grasse  arrives  in  the  Chesapeake — Washington's  march- 
to  Virginia. — Cornwallis  fortifies  York  Town. — He  is  besieged,  and  his  supplies  cut 
off — He  capitulates. — Surrender  of  the  British  army. — The  disastrous  news  received 
in  London. 

THE  new  Parliament  assembled  on  the  ist  of  November,  1780. 
The  elections  had,  in  some  degree,  furnished  a  test  of  the  popular 
feeling,  in  the  choice  of  their  members  by  large  communities.  They 
had  certainly  not  manifested  that  the  opinion  of  commercial  cities, 
represented  by  that  very  ill-compounded  body  of  voters  called 
freemen,  was  favourable  to  the  growth  of  a  just  and  liberal  policy. 
Edmund  Burke  was  rejected  by  Bristol,  after  having  served  that 
flourishing  emporium  of  trade  for  six  years.  The  sentiment 
against  him  was  so  decided  that  he  could  not  even  venture  to  go 
to  the  poll.  What  were  the  public  crimes  imputed  to  him  ?  First, 
that  he  had  voted  for  Bills  which  removed  some  of  the  barbarous 
restrictions  upon  the  trade  of  Ireland.  It  was  in  vain  that  he 
had  told  his  constituents,  whilst  this  measure  of  relief  was  depend 
ing  in  1778,  that  "  trade  is  not  a  limited  thing;  as  if  the  objects  of 
mutual  demand  and  consumption  could  not  stretch  beyond  the 
bounds  of  our  J3alousies  ;"*  that  England  and  Ireland  might  flour- 
ish together  ;  that  everything  that  is  got  by  another  is  not  taken 
from  ourselves.  Secondly,  it  was  charged  against  the  member  for 
Bristol,  that  he  had  supported  a  Bill  for  reforming  the  law  jirocess 
concerning  imprisonment  for  debt  ;  and  thus  had  endeavoured  to 
mitigate  some  of  the  frightful  evils  of  a  system  under  which  a 
debtor  might  be  imprisoned  for  life  at  the  bidding  of  an  inexorable 
creditor,  unless  relieved  by  those  occasional  acts  of  grace  "  which 
turned  loose  upon  the  public  three  or  four  thousand  naked  wretches, 
corrupted  by  the  habits,  debased  by  the  ignominy,  of  a  prison."  f 
It  was  in  his  speech  to  the  electors,  in  defending  his  maintenance  of 
the  principle  that  "  the  counting-house  has  no  alliance  wit.  the 
gaol,"  that  Burke  pronounced  his  splendid  eulogy  on  Howard ; 

*  "  Two  Letters  to  Gentlemen  in  Bristol."  t  "  SpfccCh  at     . .';%!«  ' 


BURKE    REJECTED   FOR    BRISTOL.  241 

"  He  has  visited  all  Europe, — not  to  survey  the  sumptuousness  of 
palaces,  or  the  stateliness  of  temples ;  not  to  make  accurate  meas- 
urements of  the  remains  of  ancient  grandeur,  nor  to  form  a  scale 
of  the  curiosity  of  modern  art ;  not  to  collect  medals,  or  to  collate 
manuscripts  ; — but  to  dive  into  the  depths  of  dungeons  ;  to  plunge 
into  the  infection  of  hospitals  ;  to  survey  the  mansions  of  sorrow 
and  pain  ;  to  take  the  gauge  and  dimensions  of  misery,  depression, 
and  contempt ;  to  remember  the  forgotten,  to  attend  to  the  neglect- 
ed, to  visit  the  forsaken,  and  to  compare  and  collate  the  distresses 
of  all  men  in  all  countries."  The  third  charge  of  the  citizens  of 
Bristol  against  their  representative  was  his  support  of  sir  George 
Savile's  Bill  for  the  relief  of  the  Roman  Catholics  from  the  penal 
laws — that  wise  and  politic  measure  which  produced  the  riots  of 
1780.  Burke's  manly  exposure  of  the  cowardice  which  argued 
that  the  Act  of  Relief  ought  not  to  have  been  passed,  in  deference 
to  Protestant  prejudices,  is  an  example  of  the  mode  in  which  hon- 
est statesmen  ought  to  encounter  popular  delusions.  The  spirit 
which  dictated  the  peroration  of  his  speech  to  the  electors  is  wor- 
thy of  the  imitation  of  the  highest  and  the  humblest  in  rank  or 
talent  who  aspire  to  be  legislators  :  "  I  do  not  here  stand  before 
you  accused  of  venality,  or  of  neglect  of  duty.  It  is  not  said  that, 
in  the  long  period  of  my  service,  I  have,  in  a  single  instance,  sac- 
rificed the  slightest  of  your  interests  to  my  ambition,  or  to  my  for- 
tune. It  is  not  alleged  that,  to  gratify  any  anger,  revenge  of  my  own 
or  of  my  party,  I  have  had  a  share  in  wronging  or  oppressing  any 
description  of  men,  or  any  one  man  in  any  description.  No  !  The 
charges  against  me  are  all  of  one  kind,  that  I  have  pushed  the 
principles  of  general  justice  and  benevolence  too  far ;  further  than 
a  cautious  policy  would  warrant ;  and  further  than  the  opinions  of 
many  would  go  along  with  me.  In  every  accident  which  may  hap- 
pen through  life, — in  pain,  in  sorrow,  in  depression  and  distress — I 
will  call  to  mind  this  accusation,  and  be  comforted." 

The  elections  were  generally  favourable  to  the  Court.  The 
riots  of  London  had  spread  terror  through  the  country.  Opposi- 
tion to  the  measures  of  government,  conducted  legally  and  peace- 
fully, was  regarded  by  many  of  the  rich  and  most  of  the  timid  as 
encouragement  to  the  outrages  of  ignorant  multitudes.  Although 
a  hundred  and  thirteen  new  members  were  returned  to  this  Parlia- 
ment, there  were  few  expensive  contests,  especially  for  counties. 
Of  the  new  members,  there  we're  several  young  men  whose  names 
afterwards  became  famous.  Wilberforce  was  returned  for  Hull, 
by  a  corrupt  expenditure  of  eight  or  nine  thousand  pounds.*  Pitt 

*  "  Life  of  Wilberforce,"  by  his  sons,  vol.  i.  p.  15. 

VOL.  Vi._i6 


242  HISTORY   OF    ENGLAND. 

sat  for  the  close  borough  of  Appleby,  having  unsuccessfully  con- 
tested the  University  of  Cambridge.  Sheridan  was  elected  for 
Stafford. 

The  ministry,  as  might  be  expected  from  the  result  of  the  elec- 
tions, had  acquired  a  firmer  position.  On  the  25th  of  January  a 
royal  message  announced  a  rupture  with  Holland,  the  reasons  of 
which  were  set  forth  in  a  manifesto.  An  amendment  to  the  Ad- 
dress in  support  of  the  war  was  rejected  by  large  majorities  in 
both  houses.  Burke,  having  been  returned  for  the  borough  of 
Malton,  brought  forward  his  motion  for  the  regulation  of  the  Civil 
List,  which  had  been  rejected  in  the  previous  Session.  It  again 
met  with  the  same  fate.  Pitt  made  his  first  speech  on  this  occa- 
sion, in  support  of  the  Bill.  Two  more  efforts  put  the  young  ora- 
tor upon  a  level  with  the  most  influential  members  of  the  party 
that  advocated  retrenchment  and  reform,  and  were  opposed  to  the 
American  war — a  war  described  by  the  son  of  Chatham  as  "  a 
most  accursed,  wicked,  barbarous,  cruel,  unnatural,  unjust,  and 
diabolical  war !  "  Of  these  displays  of  his  friend,  Wilberforce 
thus  prophesied  :  "  He  comes  out  as  his  father  did,  a  ready-made 
orator ;  and  I  doubt  not  but  that  I  shall  one  day  or  other  see  him 
the  first  man  in  the  country."  * 

At  the  beginning  of  1781,  the  French  made  a  desperate  effort 
to  secure  the  most  important  of  the  Channel  Islands — the  last 
possession  of  the  duchy  of  Normandy  which  remained  to  the  Eng- 
lish crown.  During  the  American  war  two  previous  attacks  had 
been  made  upon  Jersey,  without  success.  The  baron  de  Rune- 
court  had  sailed  from  Granville,  in  Normandy,  in  a  season  of  tem- 
pest, with  a  fleet  of  small  vessels  carrying  two  thousand  troops. 
About  half  his  force  was  driven  back  to  the  coast  of  France.  But 
on  the  night  of  the  5th  of  January  he  landed  eight  hundred  men 
at  the  Violet  Bank,  about  three  miles  from  St.  Helier;  and  before 
daybreak  was  in  possession  of  that  town.  The  lieutenant-govern- 
or and  the  magistrates  being  seized,  Rullecourt  terrified  them  into 
signing  a  capitulation.  The  officers  in  Elizabeth  Castle  declared 
that  they  were  not  bound  by  such  an  act,  and  refused  to  surren- 
der the  fortress.  Meanwhile  a  spirited  young  officer,  major  Pier- 
son,  of  the  99th  regiment,  had  collected  the  militia  of  the  island, 
with  some  other  troops  ;  and,  in  answer  to  a  demand  from  Rulle- 
court to  capitulate,  replied  that  if  the  French  commander  did  not 
himself  surrender  in  twenty  minutes-  he  should  be  attacked.  Pier- 
son  led  his  columns  into  the  town ;  drove  the  enemy  from  street 
to  street ;  and  finally  compelled  the  whole  body  to  surrender  in 

*  "  Life  of  Wilberforce,"  -by  his  sons,  vol.  i.  p.  22. 


CAPTURE   OF   ST.    EUSTATIUS    BY   RODNEY,  243 

the  market-place.  The  gallant  Englishman  was  shot  through  the 
heart  at  the  moment  of  his  triumph  ;  and  the  French  invader  was 
mortally  wounded. 

Great  Britain  had  now  to  encounter  the  hazards  of  a  maritime 
war  with  France,  Spain,  and  Holland.  For  two  years  this  some- 
what unequal  battle  was  most  vigorously  fought,  wherever  there 
was  a  hostile  flag  to  be  encountered.  The  ancient  supremacy  of 
the  seas  was  again  maintained,  single-handed,  against  four  allied 
powers.  Whatever  were  the  misfortunes  of  the  British  army  that 
terminated  the  conflict  in  America,  the  close  of  the  war  was 
marked  by  maritime  successes,  which  had  an  important  influence 
upon  the  conclusion  of  a  peace  ;  and  whose  example  stimulated 
that  heroic  spirit  in  our  naval  commanders  which  was  the  chief 
safety  of  our  country  in  another  war  of  even  greater  peril. 

The  first  signal  event  of  the  war  with  Holland  was  the  capture  of 
St.  Eustatius,  one  of  the  Leeward  Islands.  This  small  possession, 
which  had  been  colonized  by  the  Dutch  for  a  hundred  and  eighty 
years,  was  especially  valuable  to  them  as  the  seat  of  a  great  com- 
merce— ''as  the  grand  free  port  of  the  West  Indies  and  America, 
and  as  a  general  market,  and  magazine,  to  all  nations."*  This  rock 
was  in  itself  a  natural  fortification.  Its  one  landing-place  is  now 
so  fortified  as  to  be  considered  impregnable.  On  the  3rd  of  Feb- 
ruary, 1781,  when  admiral  Rodney,  having  been  apprised  of  the 
declaration  of  war,  appeared  before  St.  Eustatius  with  a  large 
fleet,  and  demanded  an  immediate  surrender,  the  governor  deemed 
all  resistance  unavailing.  The  riches  in  merchandise  obtained  by 
this  success  were  beyond  all  previous  conception.  The  whole 
island  was  one  vast  emporium  of  sugar  and  tobacco,  and  all  the 
richer  products  of  the  West  Indies.  In  the  bay  two  hundred  and 
fifty  trading  vessels  were  captured.  All  the  valuable  property  be- 
longing, not  only  to  the  Dutch  West  India  Company  and  the 
traders  of  Amsterdam,  but  to  the  merchants  of  Great  Britain  and 
the  residents  of  our  West  Indian  Islands,  was  indiscriminately 
seized.  Rodney,  who  had  the  command  of  the  West  India  station, 
was  beset  with  remonstrances  and  applications  for  redress.  The 
merchants  of  St.  Christopher's  had  been  great  sufferers,  and  the 
legislature  of  that  island  supported  their  claims  to  compensation, 
on  the  ground  that  they  had  lodged  their  property  at  St.  Eustatius 
under  the  guarantee  of.  several  Acts  of  Parliament.  They  were 
told  that  the  island  was  Dutch,  everything  in  it  was  Dutch,  was 
under  the  protection  of  the  Dutch  flag,  and  as  Dutch  it  should  be 
treated.  Jews,  Americans,  French,  and  native  Dutch,  were  sue- 
*  "Annual  Register,"  1781,  p.  101. 


244  HISTORY   OF   ENGLAND. 

cessively  transported  from  the  island.  Their  property  was  sold 
by  public  auction ;  and  merchandise,  to  the  amount  of  three  mil- 
lions, was  disposed  of  at  a  terrible  depreciation,  and  found  its  way 
chiefly  to  the  French  and  Danish  islands.  May  we  not  hope  that 
such  a  barbarous  mode  of  conducting  warfare  has  passed  away ; 
and  that,  although  merchants  cannot  expect  to  be  wholly  exempted 
from  loss  and  suffering,  it  will  cease  to  be  an  object  with  a  great 
naval  power  such  as  Britain,  so  to  time  its  declaration  of  hostili- 
ties, as  to  rush  upon  unprepared  and  unsuspecting  commercial 
communities  "like  thieves  who  break  through  and  steal."  Rodney, 
in  his  official  despatch,  disclaimed  any  hope  of  private  advantage. 
Lord  North,  in  a  debate  in  the  House  of  Commons  upon  the  ques- 
tion of  the  confiscation  of  the  property  at  St.  Eustatius,  stated  that 
he  had  received  a  letter  from  the  admiral  in  which  he  had  said  he 
did  not  consider  the  property  as  belonging  to  himself  but  to  the 
Crown ;  and  Rodney,  in  his  place  as  a  member,  declared  he  had 
no  other  idea  at  the  time  when  he  seized  all  the  property  in  the 
island  than  that  it  belonged  of  right  to  his  country.  "  He  had  not 
received  intelligence,  till  long  after  the  confiscation,  of  his  ma- 
jesty's gracious  intentions  of  relinquishing  his  rights  in  favour  of 
the  fleet  and  army  to  whom  the  island  was  surrendered."  Litiga- 
tion in  the  courts  of  law  left  little  to  the  captors  of  what  had  been 
saved  from  recapture  by  the  French  in  its  conveyance  home.  The 
nation  had  to  endure  a  great  amount  of  opprobrium  in  Europe  : 
and  the  English  flag  came  to  be  regarded  in  the  West  Indies  as 
an  ensign  almost  as  much  to  be  dreaded  as  the  black  flag  of  the 
pirate.  The  piratical  flag  was  really  raised  by  a  squadron  of  pri- 
vateers from  Bristol,  who  set  sail  upon  hearing  of  the  rupture  with 
Holland,  without  waiting  for  those  letters  of  marque  and  reprisal 
under  which  their  acts  would  have  been  legalised.  The  Dutch  set- 
tlements in  Guiana  offered  tempting  prizes  to  these  adventurers. 
To  plunder  the  rich  Hollanders  appeared  to  be  an  object  worthy 
of  British  enterprize,  whether  lawful  or  unlawful.  The  present 
age  has  grown  ashamed  of  the  system  of  privateering,  however 
regularly  conducted  under  the  recognized  forms.  Enlightened 
men  were  always  averse  to  this  mode  of  private -plunder  under  the 
pretence  of  national  advantage.  Franklin,  in  the  negotiations  for 
the  peace  of  1783,  proposed  that  Great  Britain  and  America,  as 
well  as  the  other  belligerent  powers,  should  agree  not  to  grant  any 
commissions  to  private  armed  vessels,  empowering  them  to  take 
or  destroy  trading  ships.  In  1856,  after  the  close  of  the  war  with 
Russia,  the  Conference  at  Paris  recommended  the  entire  abolition 
of  the  system  of  privateering,  and  the  acknowledgment  of  the 


ACTION   OFF   THE'  DOGGER   BANK.  245 

rights  of  neutrals,  as  desirable  and  necessary  changes  for  bringing 
the  system  of  war  into  harmony  with  the  ideas  and  principles  of 
modern  civilization.  There  was  one  dissentient  power  whose  min- 
isters thought  it  politic  to  forget  the  recommendation  of  their 
illustrious  countryman. 

It  was  made  a  charge  against  sir  George  Rodney  that  he  lin- 
gered at  St.  Eustatius  from  February  to  May,  for  the  purpose  of 
looking  after  his  own  interests,  when  he  might  during  that  time 
have  carried  on  offensive  operations  at  Martinique,  where  the 
French  had  an  inferior  force  to  oppose  him.  He  was  busy,  it  was 
said,  about  the  captured  merchandise,  while  the  French  fleet  was 
reinforced,  and  Tobago  was  taken.  Rodney  defended  himself  by 
alleging  that  he  had  sent  sir  Samuel  Hood,  as  he  believed  with  an 
adequate  force,  to  oppose  the  armament  under  De  Grasse  that  had 
sailed  from  France.  The  force  was  not  adequate  ;  for  five  ships 
came  out  of  Port  Royal  harbour  to  join  the  French  admiral ;  and 
although  there  was  a  partial  action,  the  English  operations  were 
wholly  inefficient.  The  next  year  Rodney  nobly  vindicated  himself 
from  any  imputation  of  want  of  zeal  and  daring.  It  was,  indeed, 
then  time  that  some  great  effort  should  be  made  to  assert  the  mar- 
itime eminence  of  England;  for  lord  Mulgrave,  according  to  a  re- 
port of  his  speech  in  November,  1781,  maintained  an  opinion  very 
strangely  opposed  to  the  prevailing  belief  :  "  We  are  not,  nor  ever 
were,  equal  to  France  in  a  naval  contest,  where  France  applied  all 
her  resources  and  strength  to  the  raising  of  a  navy."  *  An  engage- 
ment off  the  Dogger  Bank  between  a  squadron  under  admiral 
Hyde  Parker  and  a  Dutch  squadron,  recalled  the  memory  of  "  those 
dreadful  sea-fights  between  England  and  Holland  which  the  last 
century  witnessed."  f  Like  many  of  those  sea-fights,  there  was  no 
result  but  mutual  destruction  and  prolonged  animosity.  The  brav- 
ery and  endurance  of  a  British  garrison  were  never  more  signally 
displayed  than  in  the  defence  of  Gibraltar  during  this  year.  Of 
that  memorable  siege  we  shall  have  to  relate  the  continuous  story 
in  a  subsequent  chapter. 

At  no  period  of  the  contest  between  Great  Britain  and  the 
United  States  were  the  two  principals  in  the  war  in  a  condition 
in  which  peace  was  more  necessary  to  each  than^at  the  beginning 
of  the  year  1781.  Washington,  looking  at  the  extensive  confederacy 
against  England,  thought,  towards  the  end  of  the  campaign  of  1780, 
that  it  would  not  be  in  her  power  to  continue  the  contest.  But  he 
was  soon  convinced  that,  however  menaced  on  every  side,  England 
was  entering  upon  another  campaign  without  manifesting  any  sign 

*  "Parliamentary  History,"  vol.  22,  col.  711.  t  "Annual  Register,"  1782,  p    120. 


246  HISTORY   OF   ENGLAND. 

of  exhaustion.  The  American  commander  looked  at  his  own  re- 
sources, and  saw  little  to  inspire  him  with  the  hope  of  any  decisive 
success.  At  this  period  he  writes,  "  I  see  nothing  before  us  but 
accumulating  distress.  We  have  been  half  our  time  without  pro- 
visions, and  are  likely  to  continue  so.  We  have  no  magazines, 
nor  money  to  form  them.  We  have  lived  upon  expedients  until 
we  can  live  no  longer."  *  The  Congress,  at  the  end  of  1:80,  trans- 
mitted a  letter  to  Franklin,  addressed  to  the  king  of  France,  ur- 
gently requesting  arms,  ammunition,  clothing,  and  a  loan  of  money. 
Franklin  writes  to  the  French  minister  of  foreign  affairs,  to  express 
his  opinion  "  that  the  present  conjuncture  is  critical ;  that  there  is 
some  danger  lest  the  Congress  should  lose  its  influence  over  the 
people,  if  it  is  found  unable  to  procure  the  aids  that  are  wanted  ; 
and  that  the  whole  system  of  the  new  government  in  America  may 
therefore  be  shaken."  f  Franklin  at  this  crisis,  when  the  immedi- 
ate prospect  was  so  obscure,  predicted  of  a  more  remote  future,  if 
America  should  fail  in  asserting  its  independence,  and  "if  the 
English  were  suffered  once  to  recover  that  country."  He  prophe- 
sied "  that  the  possession  of  those  fertile  and  extensive  regions, 
and  that  vast  sea-coast,  will  afford  them  so  broad  a  basis  for 
future  greatness,  by  the  rapid  growth  of  their  commerce  and  breed 
of  seamen  and  soldiers,  as  will  enable  them  to  become  the  terror  of 
Europe,  and  to  exercise  with  impunity  that  insolence  which  is  so 
natural  to  their  nation."  J  Franklin,  amidst  the  blandishments  of 
Paris,  had  become  haL  a  Frenchman.  John  Adams,  who  at  this 
period  was  the  American  envoy  at  Amsterdam,  reports  how  some 
of  the  Dutch  prophesied  after  another  fashion — "  that  America  has 
the  interest  of  all  Europe  against  her ;  that  she  will  become  the 
greatest  manufacturing  country,  and  thus  ruin  Europe ;  that  she 
will  become  a  great  and  ambitious  military  and  naval  power,  and 
consequently  terrible  to  Europe."  §  Without  regarding  the  possi- 
ble effect  of  the  establishment  of  American  independence  upon  the 
future  stability  of  the  monarchy  of  France,  the  government  of 
Louis  XVI.  resolved  to  make  one  more  effort  in  this  strange  alli- 
ance between  liberty  and  despotism.  Six  millions  of  livres  were 
granted  to  America  as  a  free  gift.  The  king  of  France  wanted  to 
borrow  money  himself  to  support  the  war,  and  could  not  injure  his 
own  credit  by  being  associated  with  an  American  loan,  for  the  de- 
preciation of  the  paper  of  Congress  had  closed  the  pockets  of  Euro- 
pean capitalists.  ||  To  add  to  the  gloom  of  the  Republican  leaders, 
on  new  year's  day  thirteen  hundred  of  the  troops  raised  by  Penn- 

*  Ramsay.     "  Life  of  Washington,"  p.  162.  t  "Works,"  vol.  viii.  p.  534. 

t  Ibid.         §  Ibiii.,  p.  494,  Letter  to  Franklin,  August,  1780.  II  Ibid.,  vol.  ix.  p.  2 


CORNWALLIS    IN   THE   CAROLINAS.  247 

sylvania  mutinied  for  redress  of  grievances  to  which  Congress  had 
given  no  heed.  They  would  serve  no  longer  without  pay,  without 
food,  without  clothing.  They  marched  away  from  their  encamp- 
ment at  Morristown,  and  were  reduced  to  obedience  with  great 
difficulty,  but  without  severities.  A  similar  mutiny  in  the  brigade 
of  New  Jersey  was  quelled  by  a  superior  force,  and  by  military 
executions. 

The  capture  of  Charlestown  in  May,  1780,  and  the  victory  of 
Camden  in  the  following  August,  had  led  the  English  government 
to  believe  that  another  campaign  would  produce  a  favourable  ter- 
mination of  the  war.  Lord  George  Germaine,  in  a  letter  to  lord 
Cornwallis,  takes  the  same  high  tone  about  the  restoration  of  the 
constitution,  and  the  punishment  of  rebels,  as  in  the  early  stages  of 
the  conflict.  He  approves  of  the  severities  of  Cornwallis  towards 
traitors  :  "  The  most  disaffected  will  now  be  convinced  that  we  are 
not  afraid  to  punish,  and  will  no  longer  venture  to  repeat  their 
crimes  in  the  hope  of  impunity  should  they  be  detected  ;  and  those 
who  are  more  moderate  will  be  led  to  withdraw  from  a  cause  which 
is  evidently  declining,  before  it  becomes  desperate,  and  they  ex- 
pose themselves  to  the  consequences  they  may  reasonably  appre- 
hend will  fall  upon  such  as  persist  in  rebellion  to  the  last."  *  With 
such  an  adviser,  we  can  well  understand  how  the  king  could  have 
no  other  notion  of  three  or  four  millions  of  Americans  in  revolt, 
than  that  they  were  mere  traitors  to  be  conquered,  and  then  to  be 
wholly  dependent  upon  his  royal  mercy.  The  people  of  England 
were  now,  to  a  certain  extent,  in  unison  with  the  government  as  to 
the  necessity  of  continuing  the  war.  Mr.  Hartley  writes  to  Frank- 
lin, "  I  verily  believe  so  great  is  the  jealousy  between  England  and 
France,  that  this  country  would  fight  for  a  straw  to  the  last  man, 
and  the  last  shilling,  rather  than  be  dictated  to  by  France."  f  The 
unfortunate  union  of  common  cause  between  America  and  France 
had  turned  aside  the  wish  of  the  people  of  England  for  peace. 
This  opinion  of  Mr.  Hartley  is  confirmed — as  far  as  a  general 
sentiment  can  receive  confirmation  from  the  expression  of  opinion 
in  particular  localities — by  the  tone  of  public  meetings  and  the  words 
of  addresses  to  the  crown. 

Lord  Cornwallis,  in  his  camp  at  Wynnesborough,  amidst  the 
flooded  rivers  and  creeks  of  South  Carolina,  was  not  so  sanguine 
as  the  secretary  at  Whitehall.  The  whole  country,  he  writes  to 
sir  Henry  Clinton  at  the  beginning  of  January,  is  kept  in  continual 
alarm  by  perpetual  risings  in  different  parts  of  the  province,  and 

*  "  Cornwallis  Correspondence,"  vol.  i.  p,  81. 
t  "  Franklin's  Works,"  vol.  ix.  p.  119. 


24$  HISTORY   OF    ENGLAND. 

the  invariable  success  of  these  parties  against  the  royalist  militia.* 
On  the  7th  of  January,  Cornwallis  began  his  march  for  North 
Carolina.  He  sent  forward  lieut.  colonel  Tarleton,  with  seven 
hundred  infantry  and  three  hundred  and  fifty  cavalry,  "  to  endea- 
vour to  strike  a  blow  at  general  Morgan."  Heavy  rains  swelled 
the  water-courses,  and  impeded  the  progress  of  the  army.  On  the 
1 7th  Tarleton  came  up  with  Morgan  ;  and  the  battle  of  Cowpens 
resulted  in  the  total  defeat  of  the  British.  The  American  line  had 
given  way,  and  the  British  were  in  disorderly  pursuit,  when  Mor- 
gan's corps  faced  about  and  poured  in  a  heavy  fire  upon  the  pur- 
suers. A  general  panic  ensued,  in  spite  of  the  exertions,  entreat- 
ies, and  example  of  colonel  Tarleton.  More  than  one-half  of  the 
royalist  forces  were  killed,  wounded,  or  taken  prisoners,  by  an 
enemy  not  superior  in  numbers.  This  defeat  is  described  as  "  the 
most  serious  calamity  which  had  occurred  since  Saratoga  —  and 
crippled  lord  Cornwallis  for  the  remainder  of  the  war."  f 

Morgan,  after  his  victory  at  the  Cowpens,  was  enabled,  though 
closely  pursued  by  Cornwallis,  to  unite  his  forces  with  those  of 
Nathaniel  Green,  a  meritorious  officer,  who  was  appointed  to  suc- 
ceed Gates  as  commander  of  the  American  army  in  North  and 
South  Carolina.  By  the  judicious  arrangements  of  general  Greene 
he  was  enabled  to  avoid  a  battle  with  the  superior  force  of  Corn- 
wallis, and  entered  Virginia.  Jefferson  was  the  governor  of  that 
State.  At  the  beginning  of  January,  Arnold,  who  was  now  in  full 
activity  in  the  British  service,  landed  about  nine  hundred  men  at 
James  Town.  They  burnt  all  the  public  property  at  Richmond 
and  other  places,  and  vhaving  marched  more  than  thirty  miles  into 
the  interior,  regained  their  vessels.  This  incursion  occupied  only 
forty-eight  hours.  Virginia  had  at  that  time  a  population  of  more 
than  half-a-million,  and  there  were  fifty  thousand  enrolled  militia 
But  these  were  scattered  over  the  country;  and  Richmond,  the 
capital,  was  a  town,  or  rather  village,  of  only  eighteen  hundred 
inhabitants.  The  militia  was  a  force  upon  paper,  with  few  men 
called  into  the  field ;  and  without  money  or  arms  it  would  have 
been  useless  to  collect  and  embody  them.  This  was  the  defence 
made  by  Jefferson,  when  his  enemies  accused  him  of  neglect,  and 
threatened  impeachment.^  Arnold  made  a  second  irruption  in 
April,  and  again  destroyed  much  property.  General  Greene  had 
been  reinforced  with  all  the  available  militia  from  Virginia  at  the 
beginning  of  March  ;  and  on  the  I5th  he  was  approaching  Guilford, 
in  North  Carolina,  with  an  army  of  seven  thousand  men.  On  that 

*  "  Cornwallis  Correspondence,"  vol.  i.  p.  81.  A  Ibid.,  vol.  i.  p.  84. 

t  Tucker's  "  Life  of  Jefferson,"  vol.  i.  p.  150. 


VICTORY    OF    GUILFORD.  249 

day  lord  Cornwallis  attacked  him,  and  after  an  action  of  an  hour 
and  a-half  routed  the  American  army,  and  took  their  cannon.  The 
British  sustained  a  heavy  loss.  "  The  great  fatigue  of  the  troops," 
writes  Cornwallis  to  Rawdon,  "  the  number  of  wounded,  and  the 
want  of  provisions,  prevented  our  pursuing  the  enemy."  *  Greene 
who  had  fled  twenty  miles  from  Guilford,  soon  became  the  pursuer. 
By  his  incessant  activity  he  cut  off  supplies  from  the  British  army, 
which  was  compelled  to  fall  back  to  Wilmington,  on  the  Cape  Fear 
River.  He  arrived  there  on  the  7th  of  April.  On  the  loth  he 
wrote  to  major-general  Phillips,  "  I  have  had  a  most  difficult  and 
dangerous  campaign,  and  was  obliged  to  fight  a  battle,  two  hundred 
miles  from  any  communication,  with  an  enemy  seven  times  my 
number.  The  fate  of  it  was  long  doubtful.  We  had  not  a  regi- 
ment or  corps  that  did  not  at  some  time  give  way."  He  adds,  "  I 
am  quite  tired  of  marching  about  the  country  in  quest  of  adven- 
tures. If  we  mean  an  offensive  war  in  America  we  must  abandon 
New  York,  and  bring  our  whole  force  into  Virginia;  we  then  have 
a  stake  to  fight  for,  and  a  successful  battle  may  give  us  America."! 
Cornwallis  wrote  home  to  lord  George  Germaine  to  recommend 
"  a  serious  attempt  upon  Virginia."  On  the  23rd,  without  waiting 
for  instructions  from  the  ministry,  or  receiving  orders  from  sir 
Henry  Clinton,  his  superior  officer,  he  resolved,  upon  his  own  re- 
sponsibility, as  he  expressed  in  another  letter  to  the  Secretary  of 
State,  "  to  take  advantage  of  general  Greene's  having  left  the  back 
of  Virginia  open,  and  march  immediately  into  that  province,  to 
attempt  a  junction  with  general  Phillips."  He  apologizes  to  Clinton 
for  deciding  upon  measures  so  important,  without  his  direction  or 
approbation  ;  alleging  "the  delay  and  difficulty  of  conveying  letters, 
and  the  impossibility  of  waiting  for  answers."  J  The  opinions  of 
Clinton  and  Cornwallis  upon  the  conduct  of  the  war  were  not  in 
accord.  Clinton  thought  the  main  object  was  to  defend  New  York, 
and  merely  maintain  the  posts  held  in  the  Southern  provinces. 
Cornwallis  held  that  if  a  defensive  war  was  the  plan  to  be  adopted, 
mixed  with  desultory  expeditions,  it  would  be  best  to  abandon  the 
Carolinas,  which  could  not  be  held  defensively  whilst  Virginia  could 
be  so  easily  armed.  "  Let  us  quit  the  Carolinas,  and  stick  to  our 
salt-pork  at  New  York,  sending  now  and  then  a  detachment  to  steal 
tobacco."  Whilst  Cornwallis  was  setting  forth  on  an  undertaking 
which,  he  says,  "sits  heavy  on  my  mind,"  Rawdon,  on  the  25th  of 
April,  won  a  battle  near  Camden.  He  sallied  from  that  post  to 
attack  general  Greene,  whose  force  doubled  his  own.  The  Amer- 

*  "  Cornwallis  Correspondence,"  vol.  i.  p.  86.  t  Ibid.,  vol.  i.  p.  88. 

"  Cornwallis  Correspondence,"  vol.  i.  p.  94,  95. 


250  HISTORY   OF    ENGLAND. 

icans  quitted  the  field  ;  but  the  victory  had  no  eventual  benefit  for 
the  British  cause. 

Lord  Cornwallis  crossed  James  River,  into  Virginia,  on  the  26th 
of  May.  General  Phillips  had  died  whilst  his  friend  was  on  his 
march  to  join  him.  Cornwallis  was,  however,  now  strengthend  by 
reinforcements,  and  proposed  to  dislodge  La  Fayette  from  Rich- 
mond. But  La  Fayette  moved  to  the  upper  country,  and  though 
the  English  general  wrote  "the  boy  cannot  escape  me,"  the  boy 
was  too  alert  to  be  captured.  The  legislature  of  Virginia  was  sit- 
ting at  Charlottesville.  and  colonel  Tarleton  was  very  near  sur- 
prising the  whole  body.  Jefferson  himself  had  a  narrow  escape, 
having  only  quitted  his  own  house  at  Monticello  ten  minutes  before 
the  British  entered  it.  "  His  property,  books,  and  papers,  were  all 
respected ;  with  the  exception  of  the  waste  which  was  committed 
in  his  cellars  by  a  few  of  the  men,  without  the  knowledge  of  their 
commanding  officer."*  The  Virginians  bitterly  complained  of  the 
mischief  committed  upon  their  plantations  by  the  invading  army, — • 
crops  of  corn  and  tobacco  destroyed,  barns  burnt,  horses  carried 
off.  The  damage  of  six  months  was  estimated  at  three  millions 
sterling.! 

On  the  2nd  of  August  Cornwallis  was  in  possession  of  York 
Town,  on  the  peninsula  between  the  river  York  and  the  river 
James.  "The  position,"  he  writes  to  his  friend,  brigadier  O'Hara, 
"is  bad,  and  of  course  we  want  more  troops,  and  you  know  that 
every  senior  general  takes  without  remorse  from  a  junior,  and  tells 
him  he  has  nothing  to  fear.''}:  Clinton  was  urging  him  to  send 
men  to  New  York.  During  the  month  of  August,  Cornwallis  was 
busily  employed  in  fortifying  York  Town,  and  also  Gloucester  on 
the  opposite  side  of  the  York  River.  On  the  2Qth  of  August,  the 
French  West  India  fleet,  under  De  Grasse,  entered  the  Chesapeake, 
and  landed  a  large  force  at  James  Town.  Cornwallis  wrote  to 
Clinton,  to  apprise  him  of  this  event,  and  to  announce  that  Wash- 
ington "  is  said  to  be  shortly  expected."  Clinton  replied  that  he 
had  no  doubt  that  Washington  was  "moving  with  six  thousand 
French  and  rebel  troops  "  against  Cornwallis  ;  and  that  all  the 
force  that  could  be  spared  from  New  York  should  be  sent  to  him. 

At  the  beginning  of  August,  Washington,  encamped  in  the 
neighbourhood  of  New  York,  was  anxiously  expecting  the  arrival 
of  the  fleet  under  De  Grasse.  He  had  conceived  hopes,  more  than 
usually  sanguine,  that  a  combined  attack  upon  New  York  by  land 
and  sea  might  have  given  a  decisive  turn  to  the  war.  The  des- 

*  Tucker,  "  Life  of  Jefferson,"  vol.  i.  p.  160. 

t  Ibid.  t  "Cornwallis  Correspondence,"  vol.  i.  p.  112. 


DE   GRASSE    IN   THE   CHESAPEAKE.  251 

patches  of  Clinton  to  Cornwallis  show  how  anxiously  the  British 
general  looked  to  the  defence  of  this  important  place,  which  had  so 
long  been  the  scene  of  hostilities.  On  the  I4th  of  August  Wash- 
ington received  intelligence  that  De  Grasse  had  sailed  to  the  Ches- 
apeake. He  instantly  determined  to  abandon  all  idea  of  attacking 
New  York,  and  to  march  for  Virginia.  On  the  2ist  of  August, 
the  troops  destined  for  the  South  were  in  motion,  no  attempt  having 
been  made  by  Clinton  to  interrupt  their  march. 

Those  qualities  of  a  commander  which  are,  at  the  least,  as  im- 
portant, if  not  so  dazzling,  as  his  ability  to  "  set  a  squadron  in  the 
field,"  have  been  rarely  displayed  more  signally  than  in  the  provi- 
dent care  of  Washington  that  no  disorder  should  ensue  from  the 
sudden  change  in  his  whole  plan  of  operations.  He  had  to  provide 
against  the  chance  of  attack  on  his  march  from  New  York  to 
Trenton,  and  he  adroitly  managed  to  lead  Clinton  to  believe  that 
the  march  was  a  feint,  and  that  he  would  return  to  his  encamp- 
ment. From  Trenton  his  army  had  to  be  transported  to  Christiana, 
and  from  the  Head  of  Elk  down  the  Chesapeake.  He  had  to 
make  arrangements  that,  upon  the  instant  of  his  arrival,  all  the 
craft  fit  for  the  navigation  of  the  Delaware  should  be  ready  to  em- 
bark his  troops.  He  had  to  ensure  a  supply  of  salt  provisions, 
flour,  and  rum,  at  the  Head  of  Elk,  to  satisfy  weary  and  grumbling 
men  during  their  long  river  passage.  They  were  grumblers  because 
for  some  time  they  had  received  no  pay.  He  arranged  for  "a 
douceur  of  a  little  hard  money  to  put  them  in  proper  temper."  He 
regarded  the  object  of  his  movement  as  one  of  the  greatest  impor- 
tance ;  and  urged  upon  the  authorities  of  the  various  States  to  pro- 
vide the  means  for  prosecuting  a  siege  with  rapidity.  On  the  6th 
of  September,  Washington  was  at  the  Head  of  Elk,  and  had  put 
himself  into  communication  with  De  Grasse.  On  the  loth  he  was 
for  a  few  hours  in  his  own  home  at  Mount  Vernon, — "  a  modest 
habitation,  quite  in  keeping  with  the  idea  that  we  have  of  Cincin- 
natus,  and  of  those  of  the  other  great  commanders  of  the  Roman 
republic."*  The  troops  had  been  embarked  at  the  Head  of  Elk, 
but  their  general  suddenly  commanded  them  to  stop.  He  had 
heard  that  De  Grasse  had  gone  to  sea  on  the  5th,  and  he  doubted 
whether  the  navigation  of  the  bay  would  have  been  secure.  De 
Grasse  had  set  sail  to  encounter  the  West  India  fleet  of  sir  Samuel 
Hood,  which  had  effected  a  junction  with  six  ships  under  admiral 
Graves,  who,  as  senior  officer,  took  the  command.  On  the  5th  a 
general  engagement  ensued,  in  which  both  fleets  were  damaged, 
but  no  vessels  on  either  side  were  taken  or  destroyed.  The  French 

*  Steuben,  p.  346. 


252  HISTORY   OF    ENGLAND. 

being  reinforced  by  the  squadron  from  Rhode  Island,  Graves  re- 
turned to  New  York,  and  De  Grasse  remained  master  of  the  Ches- 
apeake. 

On  the  1 7th  of  September,  Cornwallis  wrote  somewhat  despair- 
ingly to  Clinton  :  "  I  am  just  informed  that  since  the  Rhode  Island 
squadron  has  joined,  they  have  thirty-six  sail  of  the  line.  This 
place  is  in  no  state  of  defence.  If  you  cannot  relieve  me  very 
soon  you  must  be  prepared  to  hear  the  worst."*  He  was  promised 
relief,  and  the  co-operation  of  a  force  of  five  thousand  men,  which 
was  to  be  conveyed  by  the  whole  fleet  on  the  5th  of  October.  On 
the  8th  of  September,  Cornwallis  had  provisions  for  six  weeks. 
The  French  fleet  in  the  Chesapeake  entirely  cut  off  any  chance  of 
further  supplies.  On  the  I4th  of  October,  then,  according  to  this 
calculation,  the  British  army  would  be  in  peril  of  starvation.  But, 
according  to  one  account,  Cornwallis  subsequently  thought  that  he 
might  hold  out  to  the  middle  of  November,  f 

On  the  I Qth  of  September,  Steuben,  who  had  been  appointed 
to.  a  regular  command  in  the  siege  of  York  Town,  writes,  "  Corn- 
wallis is  fortifying  himself  like  a  brave  general  who  must  fall ;  but 
I  think  he  will  fall  with  honour."  J  Steuben  was  the  only  Ameri- 
can officer  who  had  ever  taken  part  in  a  regular  siege,  and  his  as- 
sistance in  the  siege  of  York  Town  appears  to  have  been  especi- 
ally valuable.  On  the  3oth  of  September  the  besieging  army  broke 
ground,  and  constructed  redoubts  about  eleven  hundred  yards 
from  the  British  works.  On  the  evening  of  the  pth  they  opened 
their  batteries,  and,  writes  Cornwallis  on  the  nth,  "have  since 
continued  firing  without  intermission  with  about  forty  pieces  of 
cannon,  mostly  heavy,  and  sixteen  mortars."  On  the  I2th  their 
second  parallel  was  opened.  Cornwallis  now  began  to  lose  hope : 
"  Nothing,"  he  says,  "  but  a  direct  move  to  York  River,  which 
includes  a  successful  naval  action,  can  save  me."  On  the  I5th  he 
apprised  Clinton  that  his  two  advanced  redoubts  had  been  carried 
by  storm  ;  that  his  situation  was  very  critical ;  that  his  first  earthen 
works  could  not  resist  powerful  artillery  ;  and,  his  numbers  being 
weakened,  he  concludes  by  saying,  "the  safety  of  the  place  is 
therefore  so  precarious,  that  I  cannot  recommend  that  the  fleet 
and  army  should  run  great  risk  in  endeavouring  to  save  us."  The 
catastrophe  was  close  at  hand.  On  the  2oth  of  October,  Cornwal- 
lis wrote  to  inform  Clinton  that,  on  the  previous  day,  he  had  been 
forced  to  give  up  the  posts  of  York  and  Gloucester,  and  to  surren- 

*  "Cornwallis  Correspondence,"  vol.  i.  p.  120. 

t  Ibid.,  p.  123— Letter  of  Brodrick  to  Townshend.  %  "Life,"  p.  466. 


CORffWALLIS   CAPITULATES.  253 

der  the  troops  under  his  command,  by  capitulation,  as  prisoners 
of  war  to  the  combined  forces  of  America  and  France.  In  this 
letter  he  describes  the  difficulties  he  had  encountered  since  he 
withdrew  within  the  works  in  expectation  of  the  promised  relief. 
He  dwells  on  the  diminution  of  his  numbers  by  the  fire  of  the 
enemy  and  by  sickness  ;  on  the  exhaustion  of  the  strength  and 
spirits  of  those  that  remained.  "  Under  all  these  circumstances  I 
thought  it  would  have  been  wanton  and  inhuman  to  the  last  degree 
to  sacrifice  the  lives  of  this  small  body  of  gallant  soldiers,  who  had 
ever  behaved  with  so  much  fidelity  and  courage,  by  exposing  them 
to  an  assault  which,  from  the  numbers  and  precautions  of  the  ene- 
my, could  not  fail  to  succeed."  *  The  garrison,  at  the  time  of  the 
surrender,  consisted  of  363  officers,  of  whom  some  were  sick  ;  of 
4541  non-commissioned  officers  and  rank  and  file  fit  for  duty ;  and 
of  2089  sick  and  wounded. 

The  Articles  of  Capitulation  did  not  involve  any  degrading  con- 
ditions. The  garrisons  of  York  and  Gloucester  were  to  march 
out  to  an  appointed  place,  with  shouldered  arms,  colours  cased, 
and  drums  beating  a  British  or  German  march ;  then  to  ground 
their  arms,  and  return  to  the  place  of  their  encampment.  The 
imagination  might  fill  up  a  picture  from  this  indistinct  outline. 
But  a  very  graphic  representation  of  an  extraordinary  scene  exists 
in  the  diary  of  an  Anspach  serjeant,  who  served  in  the  British 
army,  f  We  necessarily  take  only  the  prominent  points  of  a  length- 
ened detail.  On  the  afternoon  of'  the  rpth  of  October,  all  the 
troops  marched  on  the  road  to  Williamsburg,  in  platoons,  through 
the  whole  American  and  French  army,  who  were  drawn  up  in 
regiments.  In  front  of  each  regiment  were  their  generals 
and  staff-officers.  The  French  generals  were  attended  by  richly 
dressed  servants  in  liveries.  Count  de  Rochambeau,  marquis 
de  Lafayette,  count  de  Deuxponts,  and  prince  de  Lucerne 
were  there,  wearing  glittering  stars  and  badges.  The  French 
formed  the  right  wing.  The  left  wing  of  the  line  was  formed 
of  the  Americans.  In  front  were  their  generals,  Washing- 
ton, Gates,  Steuben,  and  Wayne.  They  were  paraded  in  three 
lines.  The  regulars,  in  front,  looked  passable ;  but  the  militia, 
from  Virginia  and  Maryland,  were  ragged  and  ill-looking.  The 
prisoners  were  quite  astonished  at  the  immense  number  of  their 
besiegers,  whose  lines,  three  ranks  deep,  extended  nearly  two 
miles.  They  passed  through  this  formidable  army  to  a  large  plain, 

*  "  Cornwallis  Correspondence,"  vol.  i.  p.  129. 

t  First  published  in  the  "  Life   of  Steuben,"  from  the  manuscript  of  John  Conrad 
Doe  hi  a,  in  the  possession  of  Friedrich  Kaap,  the  author  of  that  life,  p.  459, 


254  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

where  a  squadron  of  French  hussars  had  formed  a  circle.  One 
regiment  after  another  had  to  pass  into  this  circle,  to  lay  down 
their  muskets  and  other  arms.  The  honest  narrator  says,  "  When 
our  colonel,  baron  Seybothen,  had  marched  his  men  into  the  circle, 
he  had  us  drawn  up  in  a  line,  stepped  in  front  of  it,  and  com- 
manded first,  '  Present  arms,'  and  then,  'Lay  down  arms  — put  off 
swords  and  cartridge-boxes,'  while  tears  ran  down  his  cheeks. 
Most  of  us  were  weeping  like  him."  All  the  officers,  English  and 
German,  were  allowed  to  keep  their  swords.  All  marched  back 
in  utter  silence  to  the  camp.  Their  courage  and  their  spirit  were 
gone ;  "  the  more  so,"  says  the  serjeant,  "  as  in  this  our  return 
march  the  American  part  of  our  conquerors  jeered  at  us  very  in- 
sultingly." Upon  their  return  to  their  lines  and  tents,  they  enjoy- 
ed full  liberty.  The  French  are  described  as  behaving  very  well 
towards  the  conquered — altogether  kind  and  obliging.  Cornwal- 
lis,  irt  his  dispatch,  makes  no  complaint  of  the  Americans,  but  he 
clearly  draws  a  distinction  that  seems  expressive  of  no  very  cordial 
feeling  towards  those  of  the  same  race  with  himself  :  "  The  treat- 
ment, in  general,  that  we  have  received  from  the  enemy  since  our 
surrender  has  been  perfectly  good  and  proper  ;  but  the  kindness 
and  attention  that  has  been  shown  to  us  by  the  French  officers  in 
particular — their  delicate  sensibility  of  our  situation,  their  generous 
and  pressing  offer  of  money,  both  public  and  private,  to  any 
amount — has  really  gone  beyond  what  I  can  possibly  describe,  and 
will,  I  hope,  make  an  impression  on  the  breast  of  every  British 
officer  whenever  the  fortune  of  war  should  put  any  of  them  into 
our  power."*  The  abbe*  Robin  noticed  that  there  was  a  much 
deeper  feeling  of  animosity  between  the  English  and  Americans, 
than  between  the  English  and  French.  As  the  English  officers 
passed  through  the  Hues  they  saluted  every  French  officer,  but  they 
showed  no  such  courtesy  to  the  American  officers. f  There  was 
no  wisdom  or  equity  in  this  unmerited  contempt  of  men  who  were 
fighting  for  a  far  higher  cause  than  their  French  allies.  There 
was  only  a  paltry  display  of  military  pride  against  irregulars,  and  a 
servile  imitation  of  the  temper  of  the  English  Court  towards 
"rebels."  An  article  of  capitulation  proposed  by  Corn  wall  is  was 
rejected  by  Washington  ;  —  "  Natives  or  inhabitants  of  different 
parts  of  this  country  at  present  in  York  or  Gloucester  are  not  to 
be  punished  on  account  of  having  joined  the  British  army."  It 
was  rejected  upon  this  principle  : — "  The  article  cannot  be  assented 

*  "  Cornwallis  Correspondence,"  vol.  i.  p.  130. 
t  Quoted  by  Lord  Mahon,  vol.  vii,  p.  »8«. 


THE   DISASTROUS   NEWS    RECEIVED   IN   LONDON.          255 

to,  being  altogether  of  civil  resort.  But  Washington  did  not  re- 
fuse his  consent  through  any  vindictive  feeling.  He  allowed  an 
article  to  stand,  by  which  the  Bonetta  sloop  of  war  should  be  left 
entirely  at  the  disposal  of  lord  Cornwallis,  and  be  permitted  to  sail 
to  New  York  without  examination.  The  Anspach  serjeant  re- 
cords that  Tories  of  the  country  who  were  in  the  British  army, 
and  the  French  and  American  deserters  who  had  joined  during  the 
siege,  thus  passed  unmolested.  This  fact  was  probably  unknown 
in  England  when  Cornwallis  was  bitterly  blamed  for  consenting  to 
the  refusal  of  the  tenth  article.  "He  ought,"  says  Walpole,  "to 
have  declared  he  would  die  rather  than  sacrifice  the  poor  Ameri- 
cans who  had  followed  him  from  loyalty  against  their  country- 
men." * 

On  the  day  that  Cornwallis  signed  the  capitulation,  Clinton 
despatched  the  auxiliary  force  for  his  relief.  When  Cornwallis 
and  his  superior  officer  met  at  New  York,  their  differences  of 
opinion  became  a  matter  of  serious  controversy,  which  was  subse- 
quently taken  up  in  parliamentary  debates,  and  in  pamphlets  not 
devoid  of  personal  acrimony.  These  charges  and  recriminations 
were  soon  forgotten  in  the  more  important  political  events  that 
were  a  certain  consequence  of  a  calamity  through  which  the  war 
would  very  soon  come  to  an  end.  There  can  be  no  doubt  that 
the  government  felt  the  capitulation  as  an  irremediable  disaster. 
Wraxall,  in  his  "  Memoirs  of  his  Own  Time,"  has  related  a  con- 
versation which  he  had  with  lord  George  Germaine,  as  to  the  mode 
in  which  lord  North  received  the  intelligence.  Wraxall,  a  very 
slovenly  and  inaccurate  writer,  has  confounded  the  official  account 
of  the  surrender  with  a  French  Gazette  that  reached  London  on 
Sunday,  the  25th  of  November.  Clinton's  despatch  did  not  reach 
lord  George  Germaine  till  midnight  of  the  25th,  as  is  shown  by  a 
minute  on  the  back  of  the  letter ;  and  therefore  WraxalPs  state- 
ment that  lord  George  read  the  despatch  to  him  and  others  at 
dinner,  between  five  and  six  o'clock,  is  certainly  incorrect,  f  But 
nevertheless  we  cannot,  in  common  fairness,  accuse  the  gossiping 
memoir  writer  of  having  invented  the  conversation  which  he  alleges 
took  place  at  this  dinner.  He  asked  the  Secretary  how  lord  North 
took  the  communication  when  made  to  him.  The  reply  was,  "  As 
he  would  have  taken  a  ball  in  his  breast ;  for  he  opened  his  arms, 
exclaiming  wildly,  as  he  paced  up  and  down  the  apartment  during 
a  few  minutes,  <  Oh  God  !  it  is  all  over,' — words  which  he  repeated 
many  times,  under  emotions  of  the  deepest  consternation  and  dis- 

*"  Last  Journals,"  vol.  ii.  p.  475. 

t  Note  by  Mr.  Ross,  in  "  Cornwallis  Correspondence,"  vol.  i.  p.  135. 


256  HISTORY   OF    ENGLAND. 

tress."  *  Lord  George  Germaine  appears  to  have  had  very  little 
official  reticence,  if  Wraxall  is  to  be  believed,  for  he  read  to  the 
same  mixed  company  a  letter  from  the  king,  in  reply  to  the  com- 
munication of  the  disastrous  news :  "  I  trust  that  neither  lord 
George  Germaine,  nor  any  member  of  the  Cabinet,  will  suppose 
that  it  makes  the  smallest  alteration  in  those  principles  of  my  con- 
duct which  have  directed  me  in  past  time,  and  which  will  always 
continue  to  animate  me  under  every  event,  in  the  prosecution  of 
the  present  contest."  f 

*  "  Memoirs,"  vol.  ii.  p.  103.  i  Ibid -p.  108. 


THE   KING  ANNOUNCES   CAPITULATION   OF   CORNWALLIS.    257 


CHAPTER  XV. 

The  king  announces  to  Parliament  the  capitulation  of  Cornwallis. — Debates  on  the  Ad- 
dress'very  hostile  to  the  ministry.— Strong  expressions  of  Fox.— More  prudent  lan- 
guage of  Pitt. — Differences  in  the  Cabinet. — Lord  G-  Germaine  retires.- —Losses  of 
West  India  Islands  and  Minorca. — The  government  in  a  minority — Lord  North  an- 
nounces that  his  administration  is  at  an  end.  — The  Rockingham  ministry. — Rodney's 
victory  over  De  Grasse. — Breaking  the  Line. — Capture  of  the  Ville  de  Paris. — Change 
of  costume  in  the  House  of  Commons. — Burke's  Bill  for  Economical  Reform. — Bills 
on  Revenue  Officers  and  Contractors. — Pitt's  motion  for  Parliamentary  Reform. — 
Arming  the  People. — Retrospect  of  the  state  of  Ireland. — Irish  Parliament.— Grattan.— 
His  efforts  for  legislative  independence. — The  Volunteers  of  Ireland. — The  king's 
message  to  the  British  and  Irish  Parliaments.— The  Statute  of  George  I.  asserting 
the  dependence  of  Ireland  repealed. 

THE  Session  of  Parliament  was  opened  on  the  27th  of  Novem- 
ber, 1781.  The  Royal  Speech  had  been  prepared  before  the  news  of 
the  capitulation  of  Cornwallis  had  reached  London  on  the  25th.  The 
mover  of  the  Address  had  been  appointed,  and  had  got  by  heart 
the  echo  of  the  speech.  The  ministers  had  little  time  to  prepare 
or  alter  the  speech,  says  Walpole.  They  were  obliged  to  find  an- 
other mover  of  the  Address  ;  for  the  young  lord  Feilding,  origin- 
ally chosen,  "  avoided  making  himself  as  ridiculous  as  the  Royal 
Speech."*  The  inconsistency  of  the  production  is  manifest.  The 
beginning  and  the  end  declare  the  king's  resolution  to  persevere 
in  extinguishing  the  spirit  of  rebellion  amongst  his  deluded  sub- 
jects in  America,  precisely  in  the  same  tone  as  if  Cornwallis  had 
sent  Washington  a  prisoner  to  London.  But  one  little  sentence 
creeps  in,  which  renders  these  words  of  sound  and  fury  of  no 
significance  :  "  It  is  with  great  concern  I  inform  you  that  the  events 
of  war  have  been  very  unfortunate  to  my  arms  in  Virginia,  having 
ended  in  the  loss  of  my  forces  in  that  province."  It  was  to  be  ex- 
pected that  the  calamity  of  Yorktown  would  give  new  effect  to  the 
efforts  of  the  Opposition  to  put  an  end  to  the  war ;  but  the  temper 
which  was  evinced  in  this  royal  communication  was  calculated  to 
raise  hostility  to  a  ministry  into  bitterness  against  the  sovereign. 
Lord  Shelburne  talked  of  the  greatness  of  mind  with  which  his 
majesty  could  rise  superior  to  the  dreadful  situation  of  his  affairs. 
"  He  was  not  surprised  that  ministers  should  take  advantage  of  the 
noble  sentiments  of  their  monarch,  and  contrive  and  fabricate  such 
*  "  Last  Journals,"  vol  ii.  p-  474. 

VOL.  VI.— 17 


358  HISTORY  OF    ENGLAND. 

a  speech  as  should  best  flatter  his  personal  feelings  ;  but  it  was  to 
be  remembered  that  those  ministers  had  never  governed  long  for 
the  people's  advantage,  in  any  country,  who  had  not  fortitude  to 
withstand  the  mere  impulse  of  their  master's  sentiments."  *  Upon 
this  point,  it  is  curious  to  note  the  difference  of  opinion  between 
two  eminent  statesmen  of  our  own  times.  Lord  Holland  laments 
the  weakness,  while  he  enters  into  the  chivalrous  feelings,  of  lord 
North,  which  induced  him,  in  opposition  to  his  better  judgment, 
not  to  abandon  a  master  who  expressed  for  him  such  confidence, 
affection,  and  regard.  Lord  John  Russell  holds  that  the  king's 
opinion  that  the  independence  of  America  would  be  tantamount 
to  the  rum  of  the  country,  was  the  opinion  of  Chatham  and  others 
of  the  most  eminent  of  his  subjects ;  that  the  king  was  only 
blameable  for  the  obstinacy  with  which  he  clung  to  this  opinion  ; 
but  that  lord  North,  who  was  disposed  to  conciliate  America,  and 
was  quite  ready  to  consent  to  peace,  by  remaining  in  power  to 
carry  into  effect  the  personal  wishes  of  the  sovereign,  which  he 
preferred  to  the  welfare  of  the  state,  exhibited  a  conduct  which 
might  be  Toryism,  but  was  neither  patriotic  nor  constitutional,  f 

The  debates  in  the  House  of  Commons  at  this  crisis,  as  devel- 
oping the  characters  of  the  two  men  who  were  to  become  the  great 
leaders  of  the  rival  parties  for  twenty  years,  are  singularly  interest- 
ing. Charles  Fox,  now  in  his  thirty-third  year,  by  the  force  of  his 
parliamentary  abilities  had  obtained  the  highest  position  in  popular 
estimation.  He  was  the  recognized  leader  of  opposition  ;  the  most 
accomplished  debater  in  either  house.  His  notorious  contempt  for 
some  of  decencies  of  life,  unquestionably  of  evil  example  to 
younger  men, — and  therefore  particularly  offensive  to  the  king, — 
his  reckless  spirit  of  gambling,  which  involved  the  ruin  of  his  for- 
tune, and  all  the  hurailiating  exposures  of  irretrievable  debt, — these 
defects  could  not  abate  the  love  and  admiration  which  he  command- 
ed by  his  frank  and  generous  nature,  and  by  his  wonderful  powers. 
But  his  capacity  of  winning  friends  was  often  neutralized  by  his 
rashness  in  making  enemies.  Lord  North,  a  man  of  the  most  im- 
perturbable good-nature,  could  readily  forgive  all  the  bitter  things 
which  Fox  could  say  of  him,  and  even  smile  at  his  threats  of  bring- 
ing him  to  the  block.  George  III.  treasured  up  in  his  memory  the 
strong  expressions  of  Fox,  as  he  had  treasured  up  those  of  Chat- 
ham ;  and  his  hatred  of  these  two  amongst  the  most  influential  of 
his  subjects  was  never  subdued,  and  rarely  concealed.  Fox  might 
naturally  look  to  take  a  high  place  in  the  government  when  the  ad- 

*  "  Parliamentary  History,"  vcl.  xxii.  col.  644. 
t  "  Memorials  of  Fox,"  vol.  i.  p.  247 


SPEECHES   OF    FOX,    BURKE,   AND   PITT.  259 

ministration  of  lord  North  should  come  to  an  end,  as  was  clearly 
inevitable  ;  but  he  could  scarcely  expect  to  propitiate  the  sovereign 
by  the  language  which  he  used  on  the  27th  of  November,  in  mov- 
ing an  Amendment  to  the  Address.  The  speech  from  the  throne 
may  be  considered  as  the  speech  of  the  ministers.  But  if  men, 
he  said,  were  unacquainted  with  the  nature  of  our  Constitution, 
what  would  they  pronounce  that  speech  to  be  ?  "  What !  but  that 
it  was  the  speech  of  some  arbitrary,  despotic,  hard-hearted,  and 
unfeeling  monarch,  who,  having  involved  the  slaves,  his  subjects, 
in  a  ruinous  and  unnatural  war,  to  glut  his  enmity,  or  to  satiate  his 
revenge,  was  determined  to  persevere  in  spite  of  calamity  and  even 
of  fate  ; — that  it  was  the  speech  of  a  monarch  incapable  of  feeling 
his  own  misfortunes,  or  of  sympathising  with  the  sorrows  of  his 
people,  when  the  high  prerogative  of  his  despotic  will  was  disputed ; 
for  despotic  monarchs  were  the  most  tenacious  of  their  rights,  as 
they  called  them,  and  allowed  nothing  to  the  feelings  or  to  the  com- 
forts of  their  fellow-creatures."  *  Burke,  on  this  occasion,  used  a 
forcible  image,  which  passed  into  a  proverb.  Denouncing  the 
"  miserable  and  infatuated  men  "  who  claimed  a  right  of  taxing  Amer- 
ica, without  the  power  of  enforcing  the  claim,  he  employed  this 
illustration  :  "  Oh  !  says  a  silly  man,  full  of  his  prerogative  of  do- 
minion over  a  few  beasts  of  the  field,  there  is  excellent  wool  on  the 
back  of  a  wolf,  and  therefore  he  must  be  sheared.  What !  shear 
a  wolf  ?  Yes.  But  will  he  comply  ?  Have  you  considered  the 
trouble  ?  How  will  you  get  this  wool  ?  Oh,  I  have  considered 
nothing,  and  I  will  consider  nothing,  but  my  right ;  a  wolf  is  an 
animal  that  has  wool ;  all  animals  that  have  wool  are  to  be  shorn, 
and  therefore  I  will  shear  the  wolf."  f  The  Amendment  of  Fox 
was  lost. 

William  Pitt  did  not  speak  in  support  of  the  Amendment ;  but 
the  next  day,  on  the  motion  for  bringing  up  the  report  of  the  Ad- 
dress, he  made,  according  to  Walpole,  "  a  most  brilliant  figure,  to 
the  admiration  of  men  of  all  sides."  Fox  praised  him  in  the 
warmest  terms.  Mr.  Courtenay,  although  he  supported  the  gov- 
ernment, said,  "  No  man  could  be  more  affected  by  what  fell  from 
Mr.  Pitt  than  he  was.  His  splendid  diction,  his  manly  elocution, 
his  brilliant  periods,  his  pointed  logic  conveyed  in  a  torrent  of  rapid 
and  impressive  eloquence,  brought  strongly  to  his  recollection  that 
great  and  able  statesman,  whose  memory  every  grateful  and  gen- 
erous Briton  reveres."  The  son  of  Chatham,  then  in  his  twenty- 
third  year,  was  a  striking  contrast  to  Fox,  in  the  rigid  decorum  of 
his  life.  But  he  was  not  an  unsocial  young  man.  There  was  a 

*  "  Parliamentary  History,"  vol.  xxii.  col.  698-  t  Ibid.,  vol.  xxii-  col.  722. 


26O  HISTORY   OF   ENGLAND. 

club  known  as  Goostree's,  where  he  regularly  supped  with  old 
University  companions.  He  was  the  wittiest  and  most  amusing 
amongst  a  party  of  professed  wits,  who  spent  an  evening  in  mem- 
ory of  Shakspere,  at  the  Boar's  Head  in  East  Cheap.  *  But  his 
ambition  entirely  subdued  any  disposition  to  surrender  himself  to 
such  pleasures  as  those  which  interfered  with  the  power  and  in- 
fluence of  Fox.  Ambition  was  his  master-passion,  and  it  once  be- 
trayed him,  in  this  stage  of  his  career,  when  North  was  expected 
to  resign,  into  a  declaration  that  he  would  accept  no  subordinate 
post  in  a  new  administration.  Walpole,  who  held  that  this  arro- 
gance proved  that  "  he  was  a  boy,  and  a  very  ambitious  and  a  very 
vain  one,"  states  that  the  moment  that  Pitt  had  sat  down  he  was 
aware  of  his  folly,  and  said  he  could  bite  his  tongue  out  for  what 
it  had  uttered,  f  There  was  one  imprudence  from  which  this  am- 
bitious youth  carefully  refrained.  He  gave  vent  to  those  senti- 
ments of  indignation  which  he  found  it  impossible  to  repress, 
against  those  ministers  who  were  running  headlong  into  measures 
which  could  end  only  in  the  ruin  of  the  State  ;  but  he  was  especially 
careful  not  to  say  one  word  that  could  imply  any  disrespect  to  the 
sovereign.  Dundas,  the  Lord  Advocate  of  Scotland,  though  a 
ministerial  officer,  made  a  speech  on  this  occasion  which  practically 
supported  the  arguments  of  the  Opposition.  Did  the  future  fol- 
lower of  William  Pitt  already  recognize  his  natural  and  rightful 
leader  ? 

There  were  differences  in  the  Cabinet  on  the  question  of  con- 
tinuing the  war  with  America  which  soon  became  manifest.  Lord 
George  Germaine  had  declared  in  Parliament  that  he  would  never 
sign  a  treaty  which  should  give  independence  to  America.  Lord 
North  had  felt  it  necessary  to  declare  that  for  the  future  the  war 
in  America  would  be  confined  to  an  endeavour  to  retain  certain 
posts  which  were  necessary  even  for  the  conduct  of  the  war  against 
France  and  Spain.  Lord  George  Germaine  retired  from  office, 
and  was  created  a  peer.  The  naval  management  of  lord  Sand- 
wich was  vigorously  assailed  ;  for  he  had  sent  admiral  Kempenfeld 
to  intercept  a  French  fleet  sailing  from  Brest  to  reinforce  their 
squadrons  in  'the  We'st  Indies,  and  the  British  admiral  was  forced 
to  return  to  England,  after  taking  some  transports,  finding  himself 
likely  to  be  opposed  by  a  very  superior  force.  In  the  West  Indies 
the  prospect  was  not  encouraging  to  a  falling  ministry.  St.  Eusta- 
tius,  Demerara,  and  Essequibo  had  been  re-taken  by  the  French 
and  restored  to  their  original  possessors.  Our  own  colonies  of  St. 

*  "  Life  of  Wi'berforce,"  vol.  i.  p.  18. 
t  "  Lost  Journals,"  vol.  ii.  p.  514. 


GERMAINE    RETIRES.  26 1 

Christopher's,  Nevis,  and  Montserrat,  had  fallen  into  the  hands  of 
our  enemies.  To  complete  the  sum  of  national  misfortunes,  Mi- 
norca, that  noble  harbour  of  the  Mediterranean,  which  was  lost  in 
1756,  and  regained  at  the  peace  of  Paris,  was  surrendered  to  the 
French  on  the  fth  of  February,  after  a  long  siege  and  gallant  de- 
fence. 

Thus,  with  disasters  on  every  side,  the  administration  of  lord 
North  was  in  no  .condition  to  stand  up  against  the  repeated  at- 
tacks of  a  powerful  opposition,  and  the  manifest  defection  of 
alarmed  supporters.  On  the  22nd  of  February,  general  Con  way, 
having  expressed  an  opinion  that  there  was  a  disposition  in 
America  to  treat  for  peace,  moved  that  an  Address  be  presented 
to  the  king  that  "  he  will  be  pleased  to  listen  to  the  humble  prayer 
and  advice  of  his  faithful  Commons,  that  the  war  on  the  continent 
of  North  America  may  no  longer  be  pursued  for  the  impracticable 
purpose  of  reducing  the  inhabitants  of  that  country  to  obedience 
by  force."  Mr.  Ellis,  the  new  Secretary  of  State,  resisted  the  mo- 
tion ;  which  was  finally  rejected  by  a  majority  only  of  one  in  a 
House  of  three  hundred  and  eighty-seven  members.  On  the  27th, 
general  Conway  renewed  his  motion  in  another  form ;  and  the 
government  was  then  in  a  minority  of  nineteen,  in  a  House  of  four 
hundred  and  forty-nine  members.  The  king's  reply  to  the  Address 
then  voted  was  cold  and  sullen  :  "  You  may  be  assured  that,  in 
pursuance  of  your  advice,  I  shall  take  such  measures  as  shall  ap- 
pear to  me  to  be  most  conducive  to  the  restoration  of  harmony 
between  Great  Britain  and  the  revolted  colonies."  On  the  pth  of 
March,  lord  John  Cavendish  moved  a  vote  of  censure  on  the  minis- 
ters for  the  conduct  of  the  war,  which  was  only  rejected  by  a 
majority  of  ten.  On  the  I5th,  after  another  bare  majority,  the 
king  wrote  to  lord  North,  "  I  am  resolved  not  to  throw  myself  into 
the  hands  of  opposition  at  all  events ;  and  shall  certainly,  if  things 
go  as  they  seem  to  tend,  know  what  my  conscience  as  well  as  hon- 
our dictates  as  the  only  way  left  for  me."  In  his  Diary  of  the  i8th 
of  March,  Walpole  says,  that  the  king  "  not  only  talked  of  retiring 
to  Hanover,  but  it  is  certain  that  for  a  fortnight  together  the  royal 
yacht  was  expeditiously  preparing  for  transporting  him."  This  idle 
threat  of  the  king  is  properly  ascribed  by  Walpole  to  "  moody  peev- 
ishness, which  had  not  looked  for,  nor  fixed  on,  any  system  "  The 
king  could  not  retain  his  old  ministers  ;  he  threw  every  difficulty 
in  the  way  of  treating  with  the  formidable  leaders  who  had  now 
the  command  of  the  House  of  Commons.  But  there  was  no  pos- 
sibility of  escape,  except  by  some  course  which  the  king  knew 
would  end  in  that  confusion  which  he  had  the  sense  at  last  not  to 


262  HISTORY   OF    ENGLAND 

risk.  On  the  2oth  of  March,  lord  North  announced  in  Parliament 
that  his  ministry  was  at  an  end.  Lord  Holland's  relation  of  the 
scene  on  this  occasion  is  a  relief  to  Walpole's  tedious  narrative  of 
negotiations  between  lord  Thurlow  and  lord  Rockingham,  which 
have  lost  the  interest  they  might  once  have  possessed  : — "  I  have 
heard  my  uncle  Fitzpatrick  give  a  very  diverting  account  of  the 
scene  that  passed  in  the  House  of  Commons  on  the  day  of  lord 
North's  resignation,  which  happened  to  be  a  remarkably  cold  day, 
with  a  fall  of  snow.  A  motion  of  lord  Surrey's,  for  the  dismissal 
of  ministers,  stood  for  that  day,  and  the  Whigs  were  anxious  that 
it  should  come  on  before  the  resignation  of  lord  North  was  offi- 
cially announced,  that  his  removal  from  office  might  be  more  mani- 
festly and  formally  the  act  of  the  House  of  Commons.  He  and 
lord  Surrey  rose  at  the  same  instant.  After  much  clamour,  disor- 
der, and  some  insignificant  speeches  on  order,  Mr.  Fox,  with  great 
quickness  and  address,  moved,  as  the  most  regular  method  of  ex- 
tricating the  House  from  its  embarrassment,  '  that  lord  Surrey  be 
now  heard.'  But  lord  North,  with  yet  more  admirable  presence  of 
mind,  mixed  with  pleasantry,  rose  immediately,  and  said,  '  I  rise 
to  speak  to  that  motion  ; '  and,  as  his  reason  for  opposing  it,  stated 
his  resignation  and  the  dissolution  of  the  ministry.  The  House,  sat- 
isfied,became  impatient,and  after  some  ineffectual  efforts  of  speakers 
on  both  sides  to  procure  a  hearing,  an  adjournment  took  place.  Snow 
was  falling,  and  the  night  tremendous.  All  the  members'  carriages 
were  dismissed,  and  Mrs.  Bennet's  room  at  the  door  was  crowded. 
But  lord  North's  carriage  was  waiting.  He  put  into  it  one  or  two  of 
his  friends,  whom  he  had  invited  to  go  home  with  him,  and  turning 
to  the  crowd,  chiefly  composed  of  his  bitter  enemies,  in  the  midst 
of  their  triumph,  exclaimed  in  this  hour  of  defeat  and  supposed 
mortification,  with  admirable  good  humour  and  pleasantry,  '  I  have 
my  carriage.  You  see,  gentlemen,  the  advantage  of  being  in  the 
secret.  Good  night.'  "*  On  the  27th  of  March,  the  king  wrote 
to  lord  North,  "  At  length  the  fatal  day  is  come,  which  the  misfor- 
tunes of  the  times,  and  the  sudden  change  of  sentiments  in  the 
House  of  Commons,  have  driven  me  to,  of  changing  my  ministers, 
and  a  more  general  removal  of  other  persons,  than  I  believe  ever 
was  known  before."  The  king  refused  to  have  any  personal  com- 
munication with  lord  Rockingham  until  his  administration  was  com- 
pleted and  he  was  admitted  to  an  audience  as  First  Lord  of  the  Trea- 
sury. Thurlow  was  continued  as  Chancellor.  Shelburne  and  Charles 
Fox  became  Secretaries  of  State.  Burke,  Thomas  Townshend,  and 

*  "  Memorials  of  Fox,"  vol.  i.  p.  395. 


THE    ROCKINGHAM    MINISTRY.  263 

Sheridan  held  minor  offices.  Burke  felt  somewhat  mortified  at  that 
exclusiveness  in  the  party  that  "  almost  avowedly  regarded  power 
as  an  heir-loom  in  certain  houses."*  He  wrote  to  an  applicant  for 
place,  "  I  make  no  part  of  the  ministerial  arrangement.  Something 
in  the  official  line  may  possibly  be  thought  fit  for  my  measure." 

At  the  precise  period  when  the  successors  of  lord  North  were 
entering  upon  their  tenure  of  office,  a  signal  triumph  of  the  British 
navy  was  taking  place,  which,  had  it  occurred  earlier,  might  have 
somewhat  altered  the  course  of  party  movements  and  of  national 
feeling.  Sir  George  Rodney,  at  the  beginning  of  the  year,  had 
left  England  to  resume  his  command  on  the  West  India  station. 
He  arrived  at  Barbadoes  on  the  iQth  of  February,  with  twelve  sail 
of  the  line.  He  would  learn  that  the  surrender  of  St.  Christopher's 
had  taken  place  a  week  before  his  arrival.  He  would  find  that  of 
all  the  West  Indian  possessions  of  Great  Britain  only  Jamaica, 
Barbadoes,  and  Antigua  remained.  The  united  naval  force  of 
France  and  Spain  in  the  West  Indies  amounted  to  sixty  ships  of 
the  line  ;  and  it  was  known  that  a  formidable  armament  was  pre- 
paring to  attack  Jamaica.  Fortunately  Rodney  was  enabled  to 
form  a  junction  with  the  squadron  of  sir  Samuel  Hood,  whose 
efforts  had  been  unavailing  to  prevent  the  surrender  of  St. 
Christopher's.  With  a  reinforcement  of  three  sail  of  the  line  from 
England,  Rodney  had  now  thirty-six  sail  of  the  line,  although 
several  ships  were  in  bad  condition.  His  cruisers  were  watching 
the  movements  of  De  Grasse  in  the  harbour  of  Port  Royal,  where 
he  was  re-fitting  and  taking  troops  on  board.  On  the  8th  of  April 
signal  was  made  that  the  French  fleet  had  put  to  sea,  with  thirty- 
three  sail  of  the  line.  It  was  the  obvious  policy  of  Rodney  to 
engage  De  Grasse  before  a  junction  could  be  effected  with  the 
Spaniards.  His  fleet,  which  had  been  anchored  at  St.  Lucia,  was 
immediately  under  weigh,  and  in  pursuit  of  the  enemy.  In  the 
French  fleet  there  were  vessels  of  very  heavy  metal,  especially  the 
Ville  de  Paris,  the  flag-ship,  of  no  guns,  considered  the  pride  and 
bulwark  of  their  navy.  In  the  English  fleet  there  were  five  ninety- 
gun  ships.  On  the  Qth  of  April,  the  van  under  Hood  became  en- 
gaged with  a  superior  number  of  the  French  ships  ;  but  the  dis- 
proportion was  remedied  by  Rodney  coming  up  with  a  few  ships  of 
his  division.  The  baffling  winds  prevented  a  general  engagement, 
which  De  Grasse  was  evidently  desirous  to  avoid.  But  on  the 
evening  of  the  nth,  Rodney,  after  a  continued  chase,  in  the  en- 
deavour to  cut  off  two  of  the  French  ships  that  had  made  signals 
of  distress,  found  himself  in  face  of  the  main  fleet  of  De  Grasse 

*  Lord  Mahon,  vol.  v'i.  r.  211. 


264  HISTORY   OF   ENGLAND. 

which  had  borne  clown  to  the  assistance  of  the  disabled  vessels. 
It  was  manifest  that  a  general  battle  on  the  next  day  was  inevita- 
ble. 

The  scene  of  action  on  the  memorable  I2th  of  April  has  been 
described  "as  a  moderately  large  bason  of  water,  lying  between 
the  islands  of  Guadaloupe,  Dominica,  Saintes,  and  Mariegalante  ; 
and  bounded  both  to  windward  and  leward  by  very  dangerous 
shores."  *  At  seven  in  the  morning  the  battle  commenced.  It 
was  sunset  before  it  was  finished.  As  the  British  ships  came  up, 
having  received  the  signal  for  close  fighting,  they  ranged  closely 
along  the  enemy's  line — so  close  that  every  shot  that  was  given  or 
received  told  with  fatal  effect.  The  slaughter  was  tremendous  in 
the  French  ships  that  were  crowded  with  troops.  It  was  about 
noon  when  Rodney,  in  the  Formidable,  led  the  way  in  the  daring 
manoeuvre  of  breaking  the  enemy's  line.  He  was  followed  by  the 
Namur,  the  Duke,  and  the  Canada.  They  broke  the  French  line, 
about  three  ships  from  the  centre,  where  De  Grasse  commanded 
in  the  Ville  de  Paris.  Rodney  was  followed  by  the  ships  astern  of 
his  division ;  and  then  wearing  round,  doubled  upon  the  enemy 
and  completed  the  separation  of  their  line.  It  is  difficult,  if  not 
impossible,  to  show  in  words  the  precise  effect  of  such  a  manoeuvre. 
Rodney  himself,  in  1789,  wrote  some  marginal  notes  in  a  copy  of  a 
book  which  we  shall  presently  notice,  in  which  he  said  that  it  was 
the  duty  of  an  admiral  "  to  bring,  if  possible,  the  whole  fleet  under 
his  command  to  attack  half,  or  part,  of  that  of  his  enemy."  He 
further  said  that,  in  the  engagement  with  De  Grasse,  his  own  ship, 
the  Formidable,  "began  a  very  close  action  within  half  musket- 
shot,  and  continued  such  action  close  along  the  enemy's  lines  under 
an  easy  sail,  till  an  opening  appeared  at  the  third  ship  astern  of 
the  enemie's  admiral;  which  gave  an  opportunity  of  breaking  their 
line,  and  putting  their  rear  in  the  utmost  confusion."  The  French 
fleet  was  indeed  thrown  into  confusion  by  a  movement  so  wholly 
unknown  in  maritime  warfare.  Rodney  furnished  an  example 
which  was  gloriously  imitated  by  Duncan  at  Camperdown,  by  Howe, 
and  by  Nelson.  There  have  been  pages  of  controversy  on  the 
question  whether  Rodney  is  entitled  to  the  merit  of  the  idea  of 
breaking  the  line,  for  the  first  time  carried  into  effect  on  this  I2th 
of  April.  About  the  period  that  Rodney  left  London  to  take  the 
command  in  the  West  Indies,  was  printed  "An  Essay  on  Naval 
Tactics,"  by  Mr.  John  Clerk,  of  Eldin.  This  treatise  contained  a 
very  able  exposition  of  the  different  principles  of  maritime  warfare 
pursued  by  the  English  and  the  French— the  one  making  an  attack 

•"Annual  Register,"  178*. 


RODNEY'S  VICTORY  OVER  DEGRASSE.  265 

from  windward,  the  other  courting  a  leward  position ;  which  differ- 
ence, the  author  contended,  had  produced  many  of  9ur  failures  in 
general  engagements,  where  the  results  were  indecisive  and  totally 
inadequate  to  the  bravery  of  our  sailors  and  commanders.  He 
compared  the  meeting  of  two  fleets,  on  contrary  tacks,  to  a  ren- 
counter of  horsemen,  where  the  parties  pushed  their  horses  at  full 
speed,  in  opposite  directions,  exchanging  only  a  few  pistol  shots  as 
they  passed ;  and  thus  two  great  armaments  had  often  engaged  and 
separated,  without  any  serious  damage  or  loss  on  either  side.  But 
Mr.  Clerk  held  that  if  an  enemy's  line  be  cut  in  twain,  that  portion 
which  is  separated  from  the  rest  can  more  readily  be  destroyed. 
He  alleged,  in  a  later  edition  of  his  book,  that  before  its  publication 
he  had  communicated  his  views  to  Mr.  Atkinson,  a  friend  of  Rod- 
ney ;  and  that  the  admiral  himself,  before  quitting  London  in  1 782, 
said  he  would  bear  them  in  mind  in  engaging  an  enemy.  On  the 
other  hand,  sir  Charles  Douglas  maintains,  by  a  comparison  of 
dates,  that  Rodney  could  not  have  acquired  this  information  before 
he  left  to  take  his  command  at  the  beginning  of  1782;  and  that  his 
father,  the  captain  of  the  Formidable,  made  the  suggestion  to  the 
admiral  in  the  heat  of  the  engagement,  when  he  saw  a  favourable 
opportunity  of  breaking  the  line.*  In  these  rival  claims  to  what 
has  in  some  degree  the  character  of  an  invention,  most  persons 
will  be  inclined  to  consider  that  the  greater  merit  rests  with  the 
man  who  first  gives  a  practical  value  to  a  theory,  and  especially  so 
in  the  case  of  a  naval  or  land  commander,  who,  in  the  hurry  and 
tumult  of  a  battle,  seizes  the  right  moment  for  carrying  a  principle 
into  operation. 

The  engagement  of  the  I2th  of  April  terminated  in  the  most 
signal  success.  The  admiral  held  that  it  was  the  severest  sea- 
fight  on  record.  The  great  triumph  of  the  day  was  the  capture  of 
the  Ville  de  Paris.  De  Grasse  continued  the  fight  in  this  mighty 
vessel — mighty  as  compared  with  the  usual  size  of  seventy-fours, 
and  even  ninety-gun  ships,  in  that  day — till  the  victory  was  decisive 
over  the  other  portions  of  his  fleet.  The  last  broadside  from  the 
Barfleur,  commanded  by  Hood,  compelled  him  to  strike.  Five 
large  ships  were  captured,  and  one  sunk.  Those  that  escaped  fled 
to  various  ports,  and  were  not  again  united  for  any  continuance  of 
the  naval  warfare.  Jamaica  was  saved  from  the  joint  attack  of  the 
French  and  Spanish  ;  for  which  vast  preparations  had  been  made 
in  the  trains  of  artillery  that  were  found  on  board  the  captured 

*  Clerk's  claims  are  advocated  in  the  "  Edinburgh  Review,"  vol.  vi.  p.  301.  The 
pretensions  of  Clerk  and  Douglas  are  minutely  examined  in  the  "  Quarterly  Review," 
Tol.  xlii.  p.  50. 


2  66  HISTORY   OF    ENGLAND. 

vessels.  Lord  Cranston,  an  officer  who  was  sent,  after  the  Ville 
de  Paris  had  struck,  to  receive  De  Grasse's  sword,  described  the 
carnage  which  he  beheld  on  board  the  great  ship  as  altogether  ter- 
rible. Only  De  Grasse  himself,  with  two  or  three  others,  remained 
on  the  quarter-deck.  The  French  admiral  was  only  slightly  woun- 
ded, though  the  fire  of  so  many  hours  had  swept  away  most  of  his 
officers.  De  Grasse  could  scarcely  recover  from  his  astonishment 
at  seeing  his  vessel  taken,  and  himself  a  prisoner— the  vessel 
which,  on  the  news  at  Plymouth,  provoked  an  exclamation  from 
some  French  officers,  of  "Impossible!  Not  the  whole  British 
fleet  could  take  the  Ville  de  Paris."  It  was  held  that  Rodney 
ought  to  have  followed  up  his  success  by  chasing  the  ships  that 
escaped.  But  in  those  latitudes  total  darkness  comes  on  immedi- 
ately after  sunset.  He  attempted  a  pursuit  the  next  morning,  but 
his  fleet  was  becalmed  for  three  days  off  Guadaloupe.  On  the 
1 9th  of  April,  Hood  came  up  with  five  French  vessels,  in  the  Mona 
Passage,  and  captured  two  seventy-fours,  and  two  frigates.  Two 
of  the  French  ships  taken  in  this  action  never  came  as  trophies  to 
England.  The  Ville  de  Paris,  and  the  Glorieux,  went  down  in  a 
great  storm  off  the  banks  of  Newfoundland  in  September,  when 
three  English  vessels  of  a  fleet  from  Jamaica  also  perished  ;  leav- 
ing only  two  remaining  of  those  that  had  sailed  homeward  with 
admiral  Graves. 

On  the  8th  of  April  the  Parliament  met  after  a  short  recess, 
during  which  the  re-elections  had  taken  place  of  those  members 
who  had  accepted  office  in  the  new  ministry.  An  eye-witness  des- 
cribes the  change  of  costume  which  the  House  of  Commons  pre- 
sented, when  Lord  North  and  his  friends  took  their  seats  on  the 
opposition  benches,  in  great  coats,  frocks,  and  boots  ;  and  their 
successors,  having  thrown  off  the  Whig  livery  of  blue  and  buff, 
appeared  in  all  the  dignity  of  swords,  lace,  and  hair-powder.  One 
tenacious  holder  of  office,  Mr.  Welbore  Ellis,  appeared  on  that  8th 
of  April,  for  the  first  time  in  his  life,  in  an  undress.  *  The  new 
ministers  came  from  the  Levee  and  the  Drawing-room  in  their 
unfamiliar  and  uncomfortable  finery ;  and  Fox  and  Burke  had  to 
hear  the  whispered  joke  circulating  amidst  the  joke-loving  Com- 
mons, that  lord  Nugent,  whose  house  had  been  robbed  of  many 
articles  of  dress,  fancied  that  he  saw  some  of  his  laced  ruffles  on 
the  hands  of  the  gentlemen  who  now  occupied  the  Treasury  bench. 
The  change  of  measures  was  far  more  remarkable  than  the  change 
of  costume.  The  opportunity  for  carrying  those  plans  of  salutary 
reform  which  were  once  so  hateful  to  the  Court,  appeared  to  have 

*  Wraxall's  "Memoirs,"  vol.  ii. p.  172- 


BURKE'S  BILL  FOR  ECONOMICAL  REFORM.  267 

come.  George  III.  did  not  even  look  frowningly  upon  the  men 
whose  advent  to  office  was  to  have  been  the  signal  for  his  abdica- 
tion. "  The  king  appears  more  and  more  good-humoured  every 
day,"  writes  Fox  en  the  12th  of  April.  "  I  believe  he  is  really 
pleased  with  the  full  levees  and  drawing-rooms  which  he  sees  every 
day,  and  which  he  thinks  flattering  to  him."  *  But  the  adminis- 
tration had  the  elements  of  decay  and  dissolution  in  its  own  bosom. 
Thurlow,  who  had  continued  on  the  woolsack  because  "the  TVer," 
as  he  was  called,  growled  so  ominously  that  the  hunters  were  afraid 
to  disturb  him  in  his  lair,  began  at  the  very  onset  to  give  trouble  to 
his  coadjutors.  On  the  I2th,  a  royal  message  on  the  subject  of 
Burke's  measure  for  economical  reform  was  discussed  in  the  Cab- 
inet. Thurlow  was  decidedly  opposed  to  the  Bill ;  Fox  as  resolute 
that  it  should  be  carried.  The  king's  counsellors  were  wrangling 
till  the  1 5th,  when  it  was  arranged  that  Fox  should  that  day  carry 
a  message  to  the  House  of  Commons,  "  which  looks  and  points  to 
Burke's  Bill."  f 

The  royal  message  was  very  indefinite.  It  recommended  the 
consideration  of  an  effectual  plan  of  economy  through  all  the 
branches  of  the  public  expenditure,  "towards  which  important 
object  his  majesty  has  taken  into  his  actual  consideration,  a  reform 
and  regulation  in  his  civil  establishment,  which  he  will  shortly  lay 
before  the  House."  Burke  declared  to  the  Commons  that  the 
message  was  the  genuine  effusion  of  his  majesty's  paternal  care 
and  tenderness  for  his  subjects.  Shelburne  pledged  himself  to  the 
Peers  that  the  present  message  was  the  voluntary  language  of  the 
sovereign  himself.  Horace  Walpole  describes  Burke  and  Shel- 
burne as  "  ridiculously  extravagant  in  panegyrics  on  his  majesty 
for  this  magnanimity,  which  certainly  was  no  measure  of  his,  but 
an  artifice  of  their  own,  and  but  a  shallow  one,  to  persuade  the 
people  that  they  meant  to  adhere  to  their  former  principles."  f 
Burke  did  not  desert  the  principles  which  he  had  advocated  in  the 
original  introduction  of  his  great  scheme  of  reform  ;  but  like  most 
other  reformers,  he  was  compelled  to  a  compromise — to  tolerate 
the  continuance  of  some  evil  for  the  sake  of  securing  some  portion 
of  a  comprehensive  good.  Burke  had  no  seat  in  the  Cabinet,  and 
he  was  thus  compelled  to  adopt  the  decisions  of  those  who  were 
divided  amongst  themselves,  and  could  only  hope  to  hold  together 
by  mutual  concessions.  His  bill  did  not  interfere  with  the  mode  of 
supplying  the  Royal  Household ;  did  not  abolish  the  two  ancient 

*  Russell—"  Memorials  of  Fox,"  vol.  i.  p.  3'3-  \ Ibid. 

\  "  Last  Journals,"  vol.  ii.  p.  540. 


268  HISTORY   OF   ENGLAND. 

offices  of  Treasurer  and  Cofferer,— great  functionaries  who  carried 
white  wands,  and  whose  abolition  might  appear  an  encroachment 
upon  the  splendour  and  dignity  of  the  Crown.  He  left  untouched 
the  principality  of  Wales  and  the  duchies  of  Lancaster  and  Corn- 
wall. The  Ordinance  and  the  Mint  were  continued  in  the  enjoy- 
ment of  their  own  anomalous  relations  with  the  other  branches  of 
the  public  service.  Nevertheless,  a  great  reform  was  effected.  A 
number  of  useless  and  mischievous  offices,  usually  held  by  mem- 
bers of  parliament,  were  abolished,  by  which  an  annual  saving  of 
seventy-two  thousand  pounds  was  effected,  and  one  of  the  readiest 
modes  of  corruption  was  taken  away  from  the  power  of  a  ministry. 
The  pension-list  was  limited  to  an  annual  amount  of  a  very  mod- 
erate extent,  but  not  before  extravagant  pensions  had  been  granted 
to  Barre  and  Dunning.  Burke,  who  held  the  office  of  Paymaster 
of  the  Forces,  which  had  been  a  fountain  of  monstrous  wealth  to 
rapacious  politicians,  had  the  honour  of  proposing  a  distinct  Bill  for 
the  regulation  of  that  office,  by  which  no  balance  could  in  future 
accumulate  in  the  hands  of  the  Paymaster,  enabling  him,  at  the 
public  expense,  to  pocket  the  interest  even  of  a  million  sterling, 
whilst  the  Chancellor  of  the  Exchequer  was  raising  new  loans, 
to  be  followed  by  increased  taxation. 

There  were  two  important  reforms  with  reference  to  the  con- 
stitution of  Parliament  which  the  Rockingham  ministry  lost  no 
time  in  carrying.  The  one  was  to  exclude  Contractors  from  sitting 
in  the  House  of  Commons  ;  the  other  to  prevent  Revenue  Officers 
from  voting  at  elections  for  representatives  in  Parliament.  These 
measures  for  limiting  the  influence  of  the  Crown  did  not  pass  with- 
out opposition  from  the  Lord  Chancellor  and  from  lord  Mansfield. 
To  indicate  how  prodigal  contracts  were  obtained  through  par- 
liamentary influences,  lord  Shelburne  pointed  to  the  splendid  pal- 
aces of  contractors,  that  stared  the  people  in  the  face  all  round 
the  metropolis — the  sumptuousness  and  expense  with  which  they 
were  known  to  live,  which  rivalled  those  of  the  most  successful 
nabobs.  The  contractor  and  the  nabob  were  not  without  reason 
the  great  marks  for  the  finger  of  scorn  to  point  at.  To  show  the 
power  of  revenue  officers  at  elections,  lord  Rockingham  declared 
that  in  seventy  boroughs  the  returns  to  parliament  chiefly  depend- 
ed upon  those  functionaries.  The  constitutional  principle  of  these 
disqualifications  has  never  been  contested  since  these  measures 
became  law,  in  spite  of  that  opposition  which  Thurlow  headed  and 
Mansfield  supported.  A  more  extensive  principle  of  Parliamentary 
Reform  was  at  this  time  advocated  by  William  Pitt.  He  held  no 
place  in  the  government ;  but  he  was  deemed  a  supporter  of  more 


PITT'S    MOTION    FOR   PARLIAMENTARY   REFORM.  269 

liberal  doctrines  than  some  of  the  most  influential  holders  of  office. 
A  large  addition  to  the  number  of  county  members,  and  the  repeal 
of  the  Septennial  Act,  had  been  the  constant  petition  of  the  As- 
sociations in  Yorkshire  and  other  counties.  The  livery  of  London 
invariably  maintained  that  the  inequality  of  the  representation  was 
the  main  cause  of  calamitous  wars  and  profligate  expenditure. 
Mr.  Pitt  was  speaking  therefore  the  sentiments  of  a  large  body 
of  the  people,  rather  than  representing  the  opinions  of  a  party,  when, 
on  the  7th  of  May,  1782,  he  moved  for  a  Committee  to  inquire  into 
the  present  state  of  the  Representation  of  the  Commons  of  Great 
Britain.  His  motion  pledged  the  House  to  no  definite  plan,  but 
his  speech  sufficiently  indicated  the  necessity  for  "  a  calm  revision 
of  the  principles  of  the  constitution,  and  a  moderate  reform  of  such 
defects  as  had  imperceptibly  and  gradually  stole  in  to  deface, 
and  which  threatened  at  last  totally  to  destroy,  the  most  beautiful 
fabric  of  government  in  the  world."  There  were  boroughs  wholly 
under  the  command  of  the  Treasury.  There  were  others  which  had 
no  actual  existence  but  in  the  return  of  members  to  the  House — 
they  had  no  existence  in  property,  in  population,  in  trade,  in  weight 
— the  electors  were  the  slaves  of  some  person  who  claimed  the 
property  of  the  borough,  and  who  in  fact  made  the  return.  There 
were  other  boroughs  where  the  return  to  parliament  was  sold  to 
the  best  purchaser ;  and  thus  it  was  well  understood  that  the  na- 
bob of  Arcot  had  no  less  than  seven  or  eight  members  in  that 
House.  Mr.  Pitt  made  a  pointed  allusion  to  one,  now  no  more,  of 
whom  every  member  could  speak  with  more  freedom  than  himself. 
It  was  the  opinion  of  that  person  that  without  the  establishment  of 
a  "  more  solid  and  equal  representation  of  the  people,  by  which  the 
proper  constitutional  connection  should  be  revived,  this  nation, 
with  the  best  capacities  for  grandeur  and  happiness  of  any  on  the 
face  of  the  earth,  must  be  confounded  with  the  mass  of  those  whose 
liberties  were  lost  in  the  corruption  of  the  people."  Such  were  the 
opinions  advocated  by  the  son  of  Chatham,  "  with  the  ardour  for 
melioration  characteristic  of  ingenuous  youth."  *  The  Lord  Ad- 
vocate of  Scotland,  Dundas,  with  that  assurance  which  never  failed 
him,  told  the  ingenuous  youth  that  he  must  be  mistaken  with  re- 
gard to  the  opinions  of  his  father;  for  on  searching  the  Journals, 
he  had  not  found  that  lord  Chatham  had  ever  brought  in  any  reform 
whatever,  and  therefore  plainly  saw  the  constitution  wanted  no 
such  alteration.  Mr.  Pitt's  motion  was  rejected  by  a  majority  of 
twenty.  Fox  thought  the  defeat  upon  this  proposition  would  have 
many  bad  consequences.  The  late  ministry  voted  against  it  in  a 

*  Aikin— "  Annals  of  George  III."  vol.  i.  p.  306. 


270  HISTORY   OF   ENGLAND. 

body.  Of  the  new  administration  and  their  supporters  friend  was 
against  friend.  Fox  had  great  difficulty  to  persuade  Burke  not  to 
vote  against  the  motion,  but  to  leave  the  House ;  and  Sheridan 
describes  Burke  on  a  subsequent  debate  for  shortening  the  dura- 
tion of  parliaments,  as  having  "attacked  William  Pitt  in  a  scream 
of  passion,  and  swore  parliament  was,  and  always  had  been,  pre- 
cisely what  it  ought  to  be,  and  that  all  people  who  thought  of  re- 
forming it  wanted  to  overturn  the  constitution."  *  Arguments  such 
as  those  proclaimed  by  the  younger  Pitt,  in  1782,  were  left  to 
smoulder  with  occasional  flickerings  of  combustion,  under  the  sub- 
sequent  policy  of  himself  and  his  followers,  till,  after  the  lapse  of 
fifty  years,  they  burst  out  into  a  name,  which  realized  the  prophecy 
of  his  father,  in  1775,  that  either  the  Parliament  will  reform  itself 
from  within,  or  be  reformed  with  a  vengeance  from  without."  Chat- 
ham assigned  a  term  for  the  realization  of  this  prediction.  To  the 
question  of  lord  Buchan,  "  what  will  become  of  poor  England,  that 
doats  on  the  imperfection  of  her  pretended  constitution  ?  "  he  an- 
swered, "  the  gout  will  dispose  of  me  soon  enough  to  prevent  me  from 
feeling  the  consequences  of  this  infatuation."  He  assigned  the  end 
of  the  century  as  the  period  when  the  necessity  for  a  general  reform 
could  no  longer  be  resisted.f  Whether  the  Reform  was  to  come 
from  within  or  from  without,  it  is  clear  that  in  1782  the  younger  Pitt, 
if  he  had  taken  a  statesman's  view  either  of  the  power  of  the  aris- 
tocracy or  the  influence  of  the  people,  could  not  have  considered 
that  the  time  had  arrived  for  carrying  to  its  logical  conclusion  of  a 
practical  change,  the  unquestionable  theory  of  the  inequality  of  the 
representation.  It  may  be  doubted  whether  Burke  could  have 
affirmed,  except  in  a  paroxysm  of  that  temporary  violence  which 
sometimes  clouded  his  marvellous  comprehension  of  the  great  ele- 
ments of  a  political  question,  that  "Parliament  was,  and  always 
had  been,  precisely  what  it  ought  to  be."  But  we  may  well  under- 
stand how,  in  his  intimate  knowledge  of  a  composition  of  Parties, 
he  might  believe  that  an  agitation  for  Reform  would  then  be  dan- 
gerous because  it  would  be  useless.  It  has  been  truly  said  of 
Burke,  "  that  he  recognized  in  all  its  bearings  that  great  doctrine, 
which  even  in  our  own  day  is  too  often  forgotten,  that  the  aim  of 
the  legislator  should  be  not  truth,  but  expediency."  j.  We  must 
not  too  hastily  accept  the  epigrammatic  reproof  of  his  contempo- 
rary, the  most  delightful  of  writers,  but  no  very  sound  judge  of 
political  action  or  political  philosophy,  that  he  was  "  too  fond  of  the 
right  to  pursue  the  expedient." 

*  Russell — "  Memorials  of  Fox,"  vol.  i.  p.  322. 

t  Note  in  "  Parliamentary  History,"  vol.  xvii.  col.  2JJ. 

i  Buckle.    "  History  of  Civilization,"  vol.  i.  p.  416 


RETROSPECT  OF  THE  STATE  OF  IRELAND.       271 

Three  days  after  the  debate  on  Mr.  Pitt's  motion  for  reform,  a 
discussion  of  a  very  interesting  nature  came  on  in  the  House  of 
Commons.  A  Circular  Letter  had  been  issued  by  the  earl  of  Shel- 
burne,  addressed  to  the  chief  magistrate  of  the  principal  cities  and 
towns,  submitting  for  their  opinion  a  plan  for  augmenting  the  do- 
mestic force  of  the  nation,  by  raising  battalions  or  companies  of 
volunteers  in  each  locality,  who  were  not  to  be  moved  from  their 
places  of  abode  except  in  times  of  actual  invasion  or  rebellion. 
This  plan  had  the  support  of  the  leading  men  of  both  parties  ;  but 
some  alarmists  apprehended  danger  from  arming  the  people,  and 
the  ministers  were  called  upon  to  remember  what  were  the  conse- 
quences of  putting  arms  into  the  h  g  ,"'  ••  of  the  Irish  volunteers.  Mr. 
Fox  said  that  from  the  conduct  01  ;»,c  Irish  associations,  the  people 
of  this  country  might  learn  a  great  and  a  laudable  example  of  public 
virtue,  activity  and  perseverance.  He  was  answered  that  the  vol- 
unteers of  Ireland  had  subverted  the  government  of  their  country, 
and  overturned  its  constitution.*  The  House  manifested  great 
anxiety  to  stop  the  line  of  discussion.  There  was  at  that  moment 
a  crisis  in  the  affairs  of  Ireland  which  called  for  the  greatest  for- 
bearanCe  and  the  most  strenuous  attempts  at  conciliation.  We  have 
deferred  any  passing  glance  at  the  affairs  of  Ireland,  that  we  might 
present  such  a  general  view  as  would  naturally  lead  to  a  brief  nar- 
rative of  the  great  constitutional  change  of  1 782. 

Five  years  before  the  publication  of  the  "  Drapier's  Letters," 
in  1724,  a  Bill  was  passed  by  the  English  Parliament,  denying,  in 
its  preamble,  the  right  of  the  Irish  House  of  Lords  to  an  appellant 
jurisdiction,  and  declaring  •'  that  the  king's  majesty,  by  and  with 
the  advice  of  the  lords  spiritual  and  temporal,  and  commons  of 
Great  Britain,  in  Parliament  assembled,  had,  hath,  and  of  right 
ought  to  have,  full  power  and  authority  to  make  laws  and  statutes 
of  sufficient  force  and  validity  to  bind  the  people  and  the  kingdom 
of  Ireland."  f  In  spite  of  the  restrictions  upon  its  commerce,  Ire- 
land had  continued  to  improve  in  wealth,  and  consequently  in  a 
desire  for  independence.  When  Arthur  Young  wrote  his  Tour  in 
1779,  he  said  that  during  the  previous  twenty  years,  the  towns  of 
Ireland  had  been  newly  built  over,  and  in  a  manner  far  superior 
to  what  was  the  case  before.  The  Protestants  were  necessarily 
the  sole  exponents  of  the  desire  to  emerge  from  a  dependent  con- 
dition ;  for  the  Roman  Catholics  were  in  complete  subjection  to 
those  who  alone  were  privileged  to  sit  in  Parliament,  and  who  filled 
every  office  in  the  state.  These  discontents  were  constantly  ex- 

*  "  Parliamentary  History,"  vol.  xxxiii.  col.  i  to  10. 
T  6  Geo.  I.  c.  5. 


fj2  HISTORY    OF   ENGLAND. 

cited  by  the  appointments  of  Englishmen  to  the  higher  posts, 
whether  ecclesiastical  or  civil.  Swift  kept  up  the  natural  jealousy 
during  the  administration  of  sir  Robert  Walpole  ;  and  under  the 
kss  politic  rule  of  the  Pelhams,  the  desire  for  equal  liberty  and 
privileges  took  the  form  of  a  contest  between  the  English  govern- 
ment and  the  Irish  House  of  Commons  as  to  the  applications  of  a 
surplus  revenue.  This  dispute  took  place  in  1753.  "  From  this 
era,"  says  Mr.  Hallam,  "  the  great  parliamentary  history  of  Ireland 
began,  and  was  terminated,  after  half  a  century,  by  the  Union."  * 

On  the  7th  of  April,  1778,  the  British  House  of  Commons,  on 
the  motion  of  lord  Nugent,  went  into  Committee  on  the  Acts 
relating  to  the  trade  and  commerce  of  Ireland  ;  and  he  moved  a 
resolution,  that  all  goods  and  merchandise  should  be  permitted  to 
be  exported  direct  from  that  kingdom  to  any  of  the  plantations 
and  settlements  of  Great  Britain,  with  the  exception  of  wool  and 
woollen  manufactures.  Lord  North  gave  his  cordial  consent  to 
the  proposal  ;  and  this  resolution,  as  well  as  two  others,  permitting 
the  importation  of  colonial  produce  to  Ireland,  removing  the  pro- 
hibition against  the  exportation  of  glass,  and  repealing  the  duties 
on  cotton  yarn  of  Irish  manufacture,  was  carried  unanimously. 
Then  commenced  that  violent  opposition  from  the  great  trading 
towns,  with  the  exception  of  London,  to  which  Burke  referred  in 
his  letter  to  the  people  of  Bristol,  f  The  Bills  which  were  brought 
in  were  contested  in  every  stage  ;  and  finally  a  very  imperfect 
measure — a  mere  promise  of  relief — was  obtained  in  that  Session. 
Popular  clamour  was  too  strong  for  honest  statesmanship.  The 
discontents  in  Ireland  grew  serious.  The  leading  politicians  of  the 
Irish  Parliament  became  naturally  restless  in  obtaining  only  a  piti- 
ful instalment  of  their  just  demands.  Towards  Ireland  George 
III.  manifested  the  s?.me  exclusive  spirit  which  he  had  constantly 
manifested  towards  America.  He  thought  that  every  concession, 
however  small,  ought  to  be  received  with  gratitude  from  the  in- 
ferior to  the  superior  power,  and  he  thus  wrote  in  November  to 
lord  North :  "  Experience  has  convinced  me  that  this  country 
gains  nothing  by  granting  indulgences  to  her  dependencies  ;  for 
opening  the  door  encourages  a  desire  for  more,  which,  if  not  com- 
plied with,  causes  discontent,  and  the  former  benefit  is  obliterated." 
There  was  a  national  spirit  rising  in  Ireland,  which  made  it  unsafe 
to  dole  out  fragments  of  justice.  The  difficulties  of  the  govern- 
ment in  carrying  on  the  war  with  America  and  France  gave  a  new 
power  to  the  Irish  patriotic  party.  There  were  no  English  troops 
in  Ireland.  The  Militia  Acts  were  there  ineffective.  A  descent 

*  "  Constitutional  History,"  chap  xviii.  t  Ante,  p.  417. 


IRISH    PARLIAMENT. — HENRY   GRATTAN.  273 

upon  the  northern  coast  was  expected  ;  and  when  the  inhabitants 
of  Belfast  and  Carrickfergus  applied  to  the  Lord-Lieutenant  for 
forces  to  protect  them,  they  were  told  that  only  sixty  troopers  could 
be  sent  from  Dublin.  The  people  resolved  to  defend  themselves. 
They  organized  bodies  of  volunteers,  without  waiting  for  any 
sanction  or  encouragement  from  the  State.  On  the  nth  of  May, 
1779,  the  marquis  of  Rockingham  stated  in  the  House  of  Lords, 
that  the  independent  corps  and  companies  then  in  arms  in  Ireland 
amounted  to  ten  thousand  men,  "  all  acting  under  illegal  powers, 
under  a  kind  of  supposition  that  all  government  was  at  an  end." 

The  Irish  Parliament  met  in  October,  1779.  In  the  June  of 
that  year  a  motion  of  lord  Shelburne,  to  address  his  majesty  on  the 
subject  of  the  trade  with  Ireland,  had  been  rejected  in  the  British 
House  of  Lords,  by  a  large  majority.  At  this  juncture  a  leader  of 
the  Irish  Parliament  arose,  who,  in  all  the  great  qualities  of  elo- 
quence, vigour,  and  integrity,  which  sometimes  gives  to  one  man 
the  power  to  speak  and  act  for  an  entire  nation,  was  especially  fit- 
ted to  be  the  champion  of  his  country.  Henry  Grattan  was  then 
in  his  thirty-fourth  year.  He  had  listened  to  the  orations  of  Chat- 
ham, and  in  a  brief  estimate  of  his  character  appears  to  have  con- 
ceived the  idea  of  what  a  kindred  genius  might  accomplish. 
"  There  was  in  this  man  something  that  could  create,  subvert,  or 
reform  ;  an  understanding,  a  spirit,  and  an  eloquence,  to  summon 
mankind  to  society,  or  to  break  the  bonds  of  slavery  asunder,  and 
rule  the  wildness  of  free  minds  with  unbounded  authority  ;  some- 
thing that  could  establish  or  overwhelm  empires,  and  strike  a  blow 
in  the  world  that  should  resound  through  its  history."  *  Singular, 
almost  grotesque,  in  his  delivery,  Grattan  had  borrowed  none  of 
the  studied  graces  of  Chatham,  the  most  perfect  master  of  elocu- 
tion ;  but  he  brought  to  the  debates  of  a  popular  assembly  the 
same  power  of  reaching  the  point  "  by  the  flashings  of  his  mind." 
The  opportunity  was  come  for  exhibiting  that  power  with  a  bold- 
ness and  fervour  which  Chatham  never  exceeded,  and  which  had 
the  same  character  of  intense  nationality  as  the  impassioned  ha- 
rangues of  the  great  Englishman.  On  the  I2th  of  October,  Grattan 
moved  an  amendment  to  the  Address,  in  which  the  magical  words 
"  Free  Trade  "  carried  the  House  with  him,  the  members  of  the 
government  not  even  calling  for  a  division.  In  the  same  way  he 
carried  a  vote  for  a  money  bill  only  of  six  months,  instead  of  the 
usual  period  of  two  years.  The  government  saw  the  necessity  of 
yielding  in  the  matter  of  Free  Trade,  lord  North  himself  proposing, 
on  the  r  2th  of  December,  1779,  three  Bills  for  the  relief  of  the 

*  Miscellaneous  Works  of  Grattan,"  p.  10. 
VOL.  VI.— 18 


274 


HISTORY.   OF   ENGLAND. 


commerce  of  Ireland,  which  were  carried  without  opposition. 
This  concession,  like  concessions  to  the  North  American  colonies, 
came  too  late.  "  We  have  gotten  commerce  but  not  freedom,"  ex- 
claimed Grattan,  on  the  igih  of  April,  1780,  when  he  moved  "that 
the  king's  most  excellent  Majesty,  and  the  Lords  and  Commons 
of  Ireland,  are  the  only  power  competent  to  make  laws  to  bind 
Ireland."  The  motion  was  then  lost,  by  an  amendment  that  the 
consideration  of  the  question  be  adjourned.  The  question  at  issue 
of  the  legislative  independence  of  Ireland  has  passed  away  ;  but 
there  are  passages  in  Grattan's  speech  in  this  memorable  debate 
which  have  an  enduring  value.  We  take  a  few  sentences  as  an 
example  of  the  solidity  of  his  views  and  the  force  of  his  expres- 
sions :  "  As  any  thing  less  than  liberty  is  inadequate  to  Ireland, 
so  it  is  dangerous  to  Great  Britain.  We  are  too  near  the  British 
nation,  we  are  too  conversant  with  her  history,  we  are  too  much 
fired  by  her  example,  to  be  anything  less  than  her  equal — anything 
less,  we  should  be  her  bitterest  enemies.  .  .  .  There  is  no  policy 
left  for  Great  Britain  but  to  cherish  the  remains  of  her  empire,  and 
do  justice  to  a  country  that  is  determined  to  do  justice  to  herself, 
certain  that  she  gives  nothing  equal  to  what  she  receives  from  us 
when  we  gave  her  Ireland.  ...  It  is  not  merely  the  connection 
of  the  crown,  it  is  a  constitutional  annexation,  an  alliance  of  liberty, 
which  is  the  true  meaning  and  mystery  of  the  sisterhood,  and  will 
make  both  countries  one  arm  and  one  soul,  replenishing  from 
time  to  time  in  their  immortal  connection,  the  vital  spirit  of  law 
and  liberty  from  the  lamp  of  each  other's  light.  Thus  combined 
by  the  ties  of  common  interest,  equal  trade,  and  equal  liberty,  the 
constitution  of  both  countries  may  become  immortal  ;  a  new  and 
milder  empire  may  ari.ve  from  the  errors  of  the  old  ;  and  the  Brit- 
ish nation  assume  once  more  her  natural  station — the  head  of 
mankind."  * 

In  the  course  of  the  debate  on  the  Irish  Trade  Bills  in  April, 
1778,  lord  North  referred  to  the  penal  laws  of  Ireland  against  Ro- 
man Catholics.  He  was  of  opinion  that  the  Irish  Parliament 
would  see  where  the  grievance  lay,  and  redress  it.  This  salutary 
recommendation  was  tardily  acted  upon  by  the  Irish  Parliament ; 
but  in  December,  1781,  upon  notice  being  given  by  a  member  that 
he  should  bring  in  a  Bill  for  the  relief  of  the  Roman  Catholics, 
Mr.  Grattan  said  that  they  deserved  every  encouragement,  for  they 
had  united  with  their  Protestant  fellow  subjects  when  the  country 
was  threatened  with  invasion,  and  had  joined  with  them  in  a  com- 
mon endeavour  to  secure  Free  Trade.  He  quoted  the  observation 

*  "  Speeches  of  H«cry  Grattan,"  edited  by  his  Son,  vol.  i.  p.  51. 


THE   VOLUNTEERS   OF    IRELAND.  275 

of  a  member  of  the  British  Parliament,  that  Ireland  could  never 
prosper  till  its  inhabitants  were  a  People.  The  Bill  for  allowing 
Roman  Catholics  to  enjoy  property,  freely  to  exercise  their  religion^ 
educate  their  children,  have  no  impediments  to  marriage,  and  re- 
tain the  means  of  self-defence,  was  finally  passed  in  February, 
1782,  Grattan  exclaiming,  as  "the  mover  of  the  Declaration  of 
Rights,  I  would  be  ashamed  of  giving  freedom  to  but  six  hundred 
thousand  of  my  countrymen,  when  I  could  extend  it  to  two  millions 
more."  Grattan  again  brought  forward  this  Declaration  on  the 
22nd  of  February,  two  days  after  the  question  of  Roman  Catholic 
relief  had  been  settled.  The  orator  felt  that  he  was  supported  by 
a  physical  force,  much  more  effectual  than  argument:  "The 
strength  which,  at  your  back,  supports  your  virtue,  precludes  your 
apostacy ;  the  armed  presence  of  the  nation  will  not  bend."  The 
motion  was  then  rejected  by  a  majority  of  sixty-nine.  But  there 
were  eighty-eight  thousand  men  in  arms  in  the  four  provinces — 
thirty-four  thousand  in  Ulster,  eighteen  thousand  in  Munster,  four- 
teen thousand  in  Connaught,  twenty-two  thousand  in  Leinster. 
Their  Commander-in-chief  was  the  earl  of  Charlemont ;  noblemen 
of  wealth  and  influence  were  amongst  their  generals.  The  dele- 
gates of  a  hundred  and  forty-three  corps  had  met  at  Dungannon 
on  the  1 5th  of  February,  and  without  a  dissentient  voice  had 
adopted  the  Resolution  that  had  been  proposed  to  Parliament  by 
Grattan, — that  no  power  but  the  King,  and  the  Lords  and  Com- 
mons of  Ireland  could  bind  that  kingdom.  Grattan  failed  in  carry- 
ing his  great  motion  upon  its  second  proposition.  He  was  not  to 
be  deterred  from  a  third  attempt,  under  more  favourable  auspices. 
At  the  end  of  February  the  administration  of  lord  North  was  in  a 
minority  in  the  British  Parliament.  On  the  I4th  of  March,  in  the 
Irish  House  of  Commons,  a  vote  was  passed  that  the  Speaker 
should  write  a  Circular  Letter  to  each  member,  requiring  him  to 
appear  in  his  place  on  that  day,  as  he  should  tender  the  rights  of 
the  Irish  Parliament.  On  the  2;th  of  March,  the  Rockingham 
ministry  entered  upon  office.  The  earl  of  Carlisle  was  removed 
from  the  Lord-Lieutenancy,  with  his  Secretary  Mr.  Eden.  The 
duke  of  Portland  was  appointed  to  the  Vice-Royalty.  On  the  first 
day  that  the  new  ministry  took  their  places  in  the  House  of  Com- 
mons, the  late  Irish  Secretary,  after  giving  a  lengthened  and  alarm- 
ing narrative  of  the  proceedings  of  the  Volunteers  and  of  the  Irish 
House  of  Commons,  proceeded  to  move  the  repeal  of  the  Act  of  the 
6th  of  George  I.  He  did  not  wish,  he  said,  to  precipitate  matters,  but 
something  must  be  done,  without  the  loss  of  a  moment,  to  prevent 
consequences  which  it  was  not  for  him  so  much  as  to  think  of — to 


276  HISTORY   OF   ENGLAND. 

anticipate  the  wishes  of  Ireland,  previous  to  the  discussion  of  Mr. 
Grattan's  motion  on  the  i6th.  Mr.  Fox  was  naturally  indignant 
at  such  a  motion  having  been  made  without  any  consultation  with 
the  king's  present  advisers,  who  had  turned  their  attention,  he 
said,  to  measures  which  would  conciliate  the  affections  of  the  Irish 
people.  The  ex-Secretary,  having  been  severely  reproved  by 
many  members  for  the  indecency  of  his  proceeding,  withdrew  the 
motion.  On  the  next  day  Mr.  Fox  presented  a  Message  from  his 
majesty,  expressing  his  concern  that  discontents  and  jealousies 
prevailed  amongst  his  loyal  subjects  in  Ireland,  and  earnestly 
recommending  the  House  to  take  the  same  into  their  most  serious 
consideration,  in  order  to  such  a  final  adjustment  as  may  give  a 
mutual  satisfaction  to  both  kingdoms.  A  similar  Message  was  de- 
livered to  the  Lords  by  earl  Shelburne. 

The  dreaded  i6th  of  April  arrived.  The  administration  had 
earnestly  desired  an  adjournment  of  the  great  question  then  to  be 
discussed ;  but  Lord  Charlemont  wrote  to  Fox  that  he  should 
greatly  fear  the  consequences  of  any  postponement.  Grattan  was 
ill;  but  he  was  inflexible  in  determining  that  there  should  be  no 
adjournment  "  unless  the. duke  of  Portland  would  pledge  himself 
that  all  the  claims  of  Ireland  should  be  agreed  to."  *  Mr.  Hutchin- 
son,  the  new  Secretary,  when  the  House  of  Commons  met  on  the 
i6th,  delivered  a  Message  similar  to  that  delivered  to  the  British 
Parliament.  Mr.  Grattan,  upon  the  motion  for  an  Address,  as 
moved  by  Mr.  Ponsonby,  rose;  and  considering  that  the  battle  was 
won,  thus  commenced  one  of  his  splendid  harangues  : — 

"  I  am  now  to  address  a  free  people  :  ages  have  passed  away, 
and  this  is  the  first  moment  in  which  you  could  be  distinguished 
by  that  appellation. 

"  I  have  spoken  on  the  subject  of  your  liberty  so  often,  that  I 
have  nothing  to  add,  and  have  only  to  admire  by  what  heaven- 
directed  steps  you  have  proceeded  until  the  whole  faculty  of  the 
nation  is  braced  up  to  the  act  of  her  own  deliverance. 

"  I  found  Ireland  on  her  knees ;  I  watched  over  her  with  an 
eternal  solicitude ;  I  have  traced  her  progress  from  injuries  to 
arms,  and,  from  arms  to  liberty.  Spirit  of  Swift!  spirit  of  Moly- 
neux!  your  genius  has  prevailed!  Ireland  is  now  a  nation  !  In 
that  new  character  I  hail  her !  and,  bowing  to  her  august  presence, 
I  say,  Esto  ptrpetua  .' 

"  She  is  no  longer  a  wretched  colony,  returning  thanks  to  her 
governor  for  his  rapine,  and  to  her  king  for  his  oppression ;  nor  is 
she  now  a  squabbling,  fretful  sectary,  perplexing  her  little  wits,  and 
*  Letter  of  Fitzpatrick,  in  "  Memorials  of  Fox,"  vol.  i.  p.  395. 


NATIONAL    ACKNOWLEDGMENT    TO  GRATTAN.  277 

firing  her  furious  statutes  with  bigotry,  sophistry,  disabilities,  and 
death,  to  transmit  to  posterity  insignificance  and  war. 

"  Look  to  the  rest  of  Europe,  and  contemplate  yourself,  and  be 
satisfied." 

Grattan's  motion  for  an  Amendment  fo  the  Address  embraced 
all  the  points  of  the  previous  Declaration  of  Rights.  "  No  one 
man,"  wrote  Fitzpatrick  to  Fox,  "  presumed  to  call  in  question  a 
single  word  advanced  by  Grattan,  and  spoke  only  to  congratulate 
Ireland  on  her  emancipation,  as  they  called  it."  The  triumph  was 
soon  completed  by  the  pressure  of  that  national  will  which  no  sane 
administration  could  resist.  On  the  xyth  of  May,  Mr.  Fox  pre- 
sented to  the  House  of  Commons  the  Resolutions  of  the  Lords 
and  Commons  of  Ireland  on  the  King's  Message  of  the  i6th  of 
April,  and  he  moved  the  repeal  of  that  statute  of  George  I.  which 
asserted  the  dependence  of  Ireland.  A  Bill  for  this  repeal  passed 
both  Houses  without  a  division.  Lord  Holland  ascribes  the  ad- 
justment of  1782  to  the  confidence  which  Mr.  Fox  and  Mr.  Grat- 
tan placed  in  each  other,  as  well  as  to  "  the  force  of  circumstances, 
and  the  skill  of  negotiation."  The  mutual  confidence  of  two  great 
men,"  and  the  skill  of  negotiation,  would  have  little  availed,  if  the 
Parliament  of  England  had  not  acquired  sufficient  wisdom  not  to  risk 
another  civil  war,  with  another  possible  dismemberment  of  a  por- 
tion of  the  empire,  for  the  sake  of  another  assertion  of  legislative 
supremacy. 

The  Parliament  of  Ireland  was  overflowing  with  gratitude  to 
Mr.  Grattan.  They  desired  to  vote  him  a  hundred  thousand 
pounds  for  the  purchase  of  an  estate.  He  at  first  refused  to  re- 
ceive any  such  public  acknowledgment  of  his  services,  but  event- 
ually accepted  half  the  amount.  There  was  another  orator  in  the 
Irish  Parliament  who  regarded  with  embittered  feelings  the  testi- 
monies of  national  gratitude  to  one  whose  political  experience  had 
been  far  less  than  his  own.  Mr.  Flood  maintained  that  the  mere 
repeal  of  the  Act  of  George  I.,  which  was  simply  a  declaratory 
law,  left  the  question  of  the  English  supremacy  undisturbed.  At 
the  time  of  the  repeal  of  that  statute  a  case  of  appeal  from  Ire- 
land remained  undecided  in  the  Court  of  King's  Bench,  and  lord 
Mansfield  gave  judgment,  as  he  had  before  done,  in  the  usual 
course  of  law.  A  violent  contest  sprang  up  in  Ireland,  which  re- 
newed the  old  distrust  of  England.  Grattan  lost  some  of  his  pop- 
ularity. Flood  laboured  to  stimulate  the  ancient  jealousies.  The 
government  of  lord  Shelburne  took  the  proper  measure  of  endeav- 
ouring to  quiet  the  alarm,  by  bringing  in  a  bill,  in  January,  1783, 
"  for  removing  and  preventing  all  doubts  which  have  arisen,  or 


278  HISTORY  OF   ENGLAND. 

might  arise,  concerning  the  exclusive  rights  of  the  Parliament  and 
Courts  of  Ireland  in  matters  of  legislature  and  judicature,  and  for 
preventing  any  writ  of  errors  or  appeal,  from  any  of  his  majesty's 
Courts  in  that  kingdom,  from  being  received,  heard,  or  adjudged, 
in  any  of  his  majesty's  Courts  in  the  kingdom  of  Great  Britain." 


OVERTURES   FOR   PEACE.  279 


CHAPTER  XVI. 

Overtures  for  Peace  between  Franklin  and  Shelburne. —  Rival  negotiators  from  England. 
— Death  of  Lord  Rockingham. — Resignation  of  the  Secretaryship  by  Mr.  Fox.— The 
Siege  of  Gibraltar. — Naval  affairs. — Lord  Howe. — Loss  of  the  Royal  George. — 
Howe's  relief  of  Gibraltar  after  the  first  bombardment. — Negotiations  for  Peace 
concluded. — The  Preliminaries  laid  before  Parliament. — Parliamentary  censures  of 
the  terms  of  Peace. — Lord  Shelburne  being  defeated,  resigns. — The  king  and  the 
American  minister. — Washington's  farewell  to  his  army,  and  his  retirement. 

IN  securing  the  tranquillity  of  Ireland,  by  yielding  in  time  to  a 
force  which  could  not  be  resisted,  the  administration  were  free  to 
negotiate  for  peace,  with  a  prospect  of  more  favourable  terms  than 
the  general  issue  of  the  war  might  authorise  them  to  demand  if  the 
sister-kingdom  were  hostile.  Ireland  responded  to  an  act  of  jus- 
tice by  an  instant  exhibition  of  cordiality.  Her  Parliament  voted 
a  hundred  thousand  pounds  for  the  levy  of  twenty  thousand  sea- 
men. The  overtures  for  peace  were  first  opened  by  Dr.  Franklin, 
in  a  letter  which  he  wrote  to  lord  Shelburne.  They  had  been  known 
to  each  other  during  Franklin's  diplomatic  sojourn  in  London  ;  and 
Franklin  wrote  to  Shelburne  on  the  22nd  of  March,  before  the  min- 
istry was  settled,  to  congratulate  him  on  the  returning  good  dispo- 
sition of  England  in  favour  of  America.  When  Shelburne  replied, 
he  was  Secretary  of  State ;  and  he  adopted  the  course  of  sending 
a  confidential  friend.  Mr.  Oswald,  to  Paris,  who  was  fully  apprised 
of  his  mind,  and  to  whom  Franklin  might  give  entire  credit.*  This 
gentleman  assured  Franklin  that  the  new  ministry  sincerely  wished 
for  peace,  and  if  the  Independence  of  the  United  States  were  agreed 
to,  there  was  nothing  to  hinder  a  pacification.  Franklin  declared 
that  America  could  only  treat  in  concert  with  France  ;  and  Mr.  Os- 
wald had,  consequently,  an  interview  with  the  count  de  Vergennes. 
This  unofficial  negotiator  returned  to  England  ;  and  was  authorized 
by  a  minute  of  the  Cabinet  to  proceed  again  to  Paris,  to  acquaint 
Dr.  Franklin  that  it  was  agreed  to  treat  for  a  general  peace.  A 
more  regular  envoy  was  sent  very  quickly  after  Oswald.  Mr. 
Thomas  Grenrille,  the  second  son  of  George  Grenville,  was  the 
bearer  of  a  letter  to  Franklin  from  Mr.  Fox.  Oswald  again  went 
back  to  London,  and  again  returned,  to  discuss  the  most  important 

*  Franklin's  Works,  vol.  ix.  p.  841. 


280  HISTORY   OF    ENGLAND. 

matters  with  Franklin,  whilst  Grenville  was  also  in  constant  com- 
munication  with  him.  The  shrewd  old  American  soon  found  him- 
self  "  in  some  perplexity  with  regard  to  these  two  negotiators."  He 
began  to  suspect  that  the  understanding  between  the  two  Secreta- 
ries of  State  was  not  perfect.  "  Lord  Shelburne  seems  to  wish  to 
have  the  management  of  the  treaty ;  Mr.  Fox  seems  to  think  it  is 
in  his  department."*  Grenville  was  annoyed  by  the  interference  of 
Oswald,  and  wrote  bitter  complaints  to  Fox.  In  the  midst  of  these 
differences,  the  head  of  the  ministry,  the  marquis  of  Rockingham, 
died  on  the  istof  July.  The  day  previous  Fox  was  in  a  minority 
in  the  Cabinet  upon  the  question  of  acknowledging  the  Independ- 
ence of  America,  before  a  treaty  of  peace  was  arranged.  He  ac- 
cordingly declared  his  intention  to  resign.  It  is  not  within  the 
province  of  our  history  to  enter  into  an  examination  of  those  dis- 
agreements between  lord  Shelburne  and  Mr.  Fox  which  led  to 
another  important  though  partial  change  of  administration.  "  Dif- 
ferences of  opinion,  suspicions  of  under-hand  dealing,  and  hostile 
cabals  and  intrigues,  and  great  resentment  thereupon  subsisted  in 
the  minds  of  Mr.  Fox  and  Mr.  Grenville."  f  There  were  the  usual 
cabals  about  having  another  man  of  high  title,  great  connections, 
and  small  abilities,  to  succeed  lord  Rockingham  as  prime  minister. 
It  was  not  a  mere  contest  for  superior  power  between  the  two  able 
secretaries.  The  duke  of  Portland  was  recommended  to  the  king 
to  be  the  First  Lord  of  the  Treasury.  The  king  appointed  lord 
Shelburne  to  the  high  office.  Fox  and  Cavendish  resigned ;  Burke 
and  Sheridan  followed  their  example.  William  Pitt  became  Chan- 
cellor of  the  Exchequer ;  Thomas  Townshend  and  lord  Grantham, 
Secretaries  of  State.  Grenville  returned  indignantly  from  his 
position  at  Paris,  much  to  the  annoyance  of  his  brother,  earl  Tem- 
ple, who  obtained  the  Lord  Lieutenancy  of  Ireland.  Walpole 
observes  that  when  the  First  Lord  of  the  Treasury  adorned  his 
new  Board  with  the  most  useful  acquisition  of  his  whole  adminis- 
tration, his  Chancellor  of  the  Exchequer,  "  young  William  Pitt," 
in  accepting  the  seals,  accepted  "the  more  difficult  task  of  enlisting 
himself  as  the  rival  of  Charles  Fox,  who  had  fondly  espoused,  and 
kindly,  not  jealously  nor  fearfully,  wished  to  have  him  as  his 
friend."  J  Their  fathers  were  rivals.  But  of  how  much  greater 
import  was  the  rivalry  of  the  sons  of  Holland  and  Chatham — how 
much  longer  was  its  duration ;  what  mightier  events  called  forth 
its  unceasing  exercise ! 

*  Franklin's  "  Journal  of  Negotiations,"  June  17. 

t  Lord  Holland,  in  "  Memorials  of  Fox,"  vol.  i.  p.  387. 

$  "  Last  Journals,"  vol.  ii.  p.  559. 


RESIGNATION    OF   MR.    FOX.  28l 

The  public  sympathy  did  not  go  along  with  the  popular  favourite 
upon  the  question  of  his  abdication  of  office,  at  a  time  when  unan- 
imity of  councils  was  essentially  important.  The  parliamentary 
explanations  of  Fox  and  Burke  have  floated  down  the  stream  of 
time,  with  many  other  historical  straws.  The  principle  of  the  mis- 
take into  which  the  great  Whig  leader  fell  has  been  candidly 
stated  by  one  who  has  a  claim  to  speak  with  authority.  Lord  John 
Russell  says,  "  The  field  of  battle  was  the  worst  that  could  be 
chosen.  Lord  Shelburne,  the  friend  and  colleague  of  lord  Chat- 
ham, a  Secretary  of  State  under  lord  Rockingham,  a  man  of  varied 
acquirements  and  undoubted  abilities,  was,  personally,  far  superior 
to  the  duke  of  Portland  as  a  candidate  for  the  office  of  Prime- 
Minister.  The  king,  therefore,  had  a  great  advantage  over 
Mr.  Fox  in  the  apparent  ground  of  the  quarrel.  Had  Mr.  Fox 
declared  that  he  would  not  serve  under  any  one,  or,  at  all  events, 
not  under  lord  Shelburne,  who  had  withheld  from  him  knowledge 
indispensable  to  his  performance  of  the  duties  of  Secretary  of 
State,  he  would  have  stood  on  firm  ground.  The  choice  of  a 
Prime  Minister  against  the  choice  of  the  Crown,  and  that  in  the 
person  of  a  man  whose  rank  and  fair  character  were  his  only  rec- 
ommendations, appeared  to  the  public  an  unwarrantable  pretension, 
inspired  by  narrow  jealousies  and  aristocratic  prejudices."  * 

The  Session  of  Parliament  was  prorogued  on  the  nth  of  July, 
immediately  after  the  formation  of  Lord  Shelburne's  ministry. 
The  king's  speech  was  wise  and  temperate.  He  would  make 
every  effort  to  obtain  peace ;  but  if  the  hope  of  a  speedy  'termina- 
tion of  the  calamities  of  war  should  be  disappointed,  he  trusted 
that  the  blessing  of  heaven  upon  our  arms  would  enable  him  to 
obtain  fair  and  reasonable  terms  of  pacification.  "  The  most 
triumphant  career  of  victory  would  not  excite  me  to  aim  at  more  ; 
and  I  have  the  satisfaction  to  be  able  to  add,  that  I  see  no  reason 
which  should  induce  me  to  think  of  accepting  less."  The  contest 
in  America  was  reduced  to  a  very  narrow  field  of  exertion.  Rod- 
ney's great  victory  had  prevented  any  immediate  attempts  to  renew 
the  maritime  war  in  the  West  Indies.  There  had  been  decided 
successes  in  the  East  Indies,  after  a  series  of  events  which  occa- 
sionally threatened  our  ascendancy;  but  the  contest  there  was  not 
yet  ended,  f  One  great  struggle  required  to  be  decided  before 
Spain  would  be  willing  to  relinquish  the  chief  object  for  which  she 
engaged  in  the  war, — the  re-conquest  of  Gibraltar. 

*  "  Memorials  of  Fox,"  vol.  i.  p.  467. 

t  The  narrative  of  East  Indian  affairs,  from  the  period  of  Hastings  becoming  GoTen 
nor-General,  is  resumed  later  on. 


t$2  HISTORY   OF   ENGLAND. 

When  the  Spanish  ambassador,  on  the  i6th  of  June,  1779,  pre- 
sented a  manifesto  to  the  Court  of  St.  James's,  which  was  consid- 
ered  equivalent  to  a  declaration  of  war,  general  Elliott,  the  veteran 
governor  of  Gibraltar,  was  not  quite  unprepared  for  the  possibility 
of  hostilities.  He  had  a  force  of  artillery  and  engineers  of  about 
five  hundred  men  ;  four  English  regiments,  and  three  detachments 
of  Hanoverians, — altogether  amounting  to  upwards  of  five  thousand 
rank  and  file.  On  the  21  st  of  June  the  communication  between 
Spain  and  Gibraltar  was  closed,  by  an  order  from.  Madrid.  A  few 
small  British  ships  were  at  that  time  in  their  usual  anchorage  off 
the  fortress.  A  friendly  intercourse  had  been  previously  carried 
on  between  the  military  of  the  fortress  and  the  Spaniards  of  the 
neighbouring  villages.  Excursions  into  the  country,  and  to  the 
coast  of  Barbary  "  rendered  Gibraltar  as  eligible  a  station  as  any 
to  which  a  soldier  could  be  ordered."  *  The  rock  of  Gibraltar, 
projecting  into  the  sea  from  the  coast  of  Spain,  could  only  be  ap- 
proached by  that  low  neck  of  sandy  land  called  "  the  Neutral 
Ground."  The  isolated  fortress  was  very  soon  invested  by  the 
'troops  of  Spain,  and  the  supplies  from  the  main-land  were  neces- 
sarily cut  off.  In  July,  the  Enterprize  frigate  brought  a  small 
quantity  of  fresh  provisions  from  Tangier;  and  boats  occasionally 
arrived  from  the  African  coast  with  live  stock  and  fruit.  But  such 
supplies  became  very  precarious,  through  the  presence  of  Spanish 
squadrons  in  the  bay.  The  people  of  the  town  under  the  rock  had 
always  been  required,  even  in  time  of  peace,  to  have  a  store  of  six 
months^'  provisions.  They  had  neglected  this  precaution,  and  in 
August  many  were  compelled  to  seek  subsistence  elsewhere.  Par- 
tial bombardments  began.  The  apprehensions  of  famine  in  Janu- 
ary, 1780,  were  very  serious.  Thistles,  dandelions,  and  wild  leeks, 
which  grew  upon  the  rocks,  became  the  daily  sustenance  of  the 
families  of  officers  and  soldiers,  for  whom  the  pittance  distributed 
from  the  Victualling  Office  was  insufficient.  The  ingenuity  of  the 
Hanoverian  soldiers  was  displayed  in  their  contrivances  for  hatch- 
ing chickens  by  artificial  heat.  But  when  the  most  frightful  ex- 
tremity of  hunger  appeared  threatening,  the  fleet  of  Rodney  arrived, 
after  his  victory  over  the  Spaniards  off  Cape  St.  Vincent.  Don 
Juan  de  Langara,  the  Spanish  admiral,  was  carried  as  a  prisoner 
to  Gibraltar ;  and  being  desirous  to  go  on  board  the  ship  of  admiral 
Digby,  he  there  saw  prince  William  Henry,  afterwards  William 
IV.,  serving  as  a  midshipman.  Great  was  the  Spaniard's  aston- 

*  In  our  narrative  of  this  memorable  siege,  we  have  Captain  Drinkwater's  History 
constantly  before  us  ;  but  it  will  be  unnecessary  to  refer  to  the  particular  passages  of  this 
excellent  work. 


THE   SIEGE   OF   GIBRALTAR.  283 

ishment  that  a  Prince  of  the  Blood  should  tell  him — with  the  same 
obedience  to  orders  that  any  other  petty-officer  would  have  shown 
— that  the  boat  was  ready  for  his  returning ;  and  the  Spaniard  ex- 
claimed, "Well  does  Great  Britain  merit  the  empire  of  the  sea! " 
The  example  has  been  followed  in  our  own  day ;  not,  we  may 
trust,  in  any  compromise  between  rank  and  duty,  but  in  that  spirit 
which  prescribes  that  every  youth  who  aspires  to  the  future  com- 
mand of  others  should  thoroughly  learn  to  do  the  humblest  and  the 
hardest  work  of  the  profession  which  he  has  chosen. 

The  storehouses  of  Gibraltar  were  now  full ;  the  garrison  had 
received  reinforcements  ;  the  troops  were  in  good  heart.  In  June, 
an  attempt  was  made  to  burn  the  British  vessels  by  Spanish  fire- 
ships  ;  but  it  signally  failed.  The  summer  wore  on  without  any 
very  important  incidents  ;  although  the  blockade  continued  unre- 
mitting. But  in  the  autumn  the  scurvy  had  broken  out  among  the 
troops,  from  the  continued  use  of  salt  provisions.  Men  crept  to 
their  posts  upon  crutches,  or  pined  and  died  in  the  crowded  hos- 
pitals. A  Danish  vessel,  laden  with  lemons  and  oranges,  was  for- 
tunately intercepted ;  and  the  sovereign  remedy  of  lemon-juice, 
which  Captain  Cook  had  successfully  tried,  and  the  ignorance  of 
which  caused  the  ships'  companies  of  admiral  Hosier  and  commo- 
dore Byron  miserably  to  perish,  saved  the  garrison  of  Gibraltar. 
Want  of  provisions  again  became  distressing.  The  intercourse 
with  Tangier  was  prohibited  by  the  emperor  of  Morocco.  At  last, 
on  the  I2th  of  April,  1781,  the  half-starved  troops  and  remaining 
inhabitants  of  the  town,  saw  a  fleet  of  a  hundred  vessels  -entering 
the  Gut,  convoyed  by  men-of-war,  who  lay-to  under  the  Barbary 
shore.  The  relief  was  well-timed.  The  dread  of  famine  was  at  an 
end.  But  on  that  day  the  Spaniards  commenced  a  fierce  bombard- 
ment from  their  lines,  which  continued  uninterruptedly  through 
May  and  June.  The  town  was  nearly  destroyed  ;  but  the  loss  of 
life  was  not  considerable.  The  works  which  the  Spaniards  had 
constructed  were  of  the  most  formidable  character;  and  they  in- 
cessantly laboured  in  making  additions  which  became  more  threat- 
ening. The  brave  and  sagacious  Elliott,  who  had  so  long  been 
satisfied  with  the  passive  resistance  of  firing  upon  the  lines  and 
batteries,  now  determined  to  hazard  a  sortie.  At  sunset,  on  the 
26th  of  November,  he  issued  his  orders  for  two  thousand  men,  un- 
der the  command  of  Brigadier  Ross,  but  accompanied  by  'himself, 
to  march  out  trom  the  fortress,  and  attack  the  batteries  which  were 
three  quarters  of  a  mile  distant.  The  surprise  was  complete ;  the 
Spaniards  deserted  their  works  in  terror;  and  in  an  hour  the  ob- 
ject of  the  sally  was  effected  by  the  destruction  of  the  enemy's 


284  HISTORY   OF   ENGLAND. 

works  by  fire,  and  by  the  blowing-up  of  their  irrgazines.  The 
batteries  continued  burning  for  five  days  ;  and  then  nothing  but 
heaps  of  sand  could  be  seen  by  the  gazers  from  the  summit  of  the 
rock. 

The  incessant  activity  of  the  besiegers  and  the  besieged  may  be 
estimated  from  an 'expressive  entry  in  Captain  Drinkwater's  narra- 
tive of  the  proceedings  in  May,  1782  :  "  From  seven  in  the  even- 
ing of  the  4th  to  the  same  hour  the  succeeding  afternoon,  both  the 
garrison  and  the  enemy  were  silent.  This  was  the  first  twenty-four 
hours  in  which  there  had  been  no  firing  for  the  space  of  thirteen 
months."  The  ruined  works  of  the  Spaniards  were  repaired  ;  and 
it  became  evident  that,  during  the  year  when  a  general  pacification 
appeared  a  probable  event,  the  Spanish  monarchy  would  put  forth 
all  its  strength  to  recover  Gibraltar  before  the  war  should  come  to 
an  end.  The  duke  de  Crillon  had  returned  from  the  conquest  of 
St.  Philip,  in  Minorca,  to  take  the  command  of  the  army  before 
Gibraltar.  There  were  thirty-three  thousand  French  and  Spanish 
troops  encamped  on  the  Neutral  Ground.  Their  batteries  were 
served  by  a  hundred  and  seventy  heavy  pieces  of  cannon.  Prep- 
arations were  making  for  a  conjoined  attack  by  sea  and  land.  In 
the  port  of  Algesiras  ten  large  ships  were  cut  down  to  serve  as  the 
foundations  of  floating  batteries,  impregnable  and  incombustible. 
General  Elliott  also  prepared  for  a  new  mode  of  defence,  suggested 
by  the  Lieutenant-Governor.  Furnaces  were  distributed  through 
the  works  for  the  purpose  of  making  balls  red-hot — for  roasting 
potatoes,  as  the  soldiers  said,  with  the  true  English  humour.  But 
the  peril  was  imminent.  Was  the  government  at  home  not  aware 
of  the  amazing  preparations  for  the  reduction  of  Gibraltar,  having 
the  knowledge  that  the  united  French  and  Spanish  fleet,  which  had 
been  threatening  the  Channel  in  July,  had  sailed  back  to  the  south- 
ward ?  Before  we  pursue  farther  the  narrative  of  the  siege,  it  may 
be  desirable  to  advert  to  the  movements  of  the  British  navy. 

Admiral  lord  Howe,  in  1776,  had  gone  as  a  Commissioner  to 
America  with  an  earnest  desire  to  restore  peace  between  Great 
Britain  and  her  colonies.  When  he  returned  home  in  1778,  he 
and  his  brother  were  received  with  little  cordiality  by  the  members 
of  the  government.  Until  the  overthrow  of  lord  North's  adminis- 
tration lord  Howe  was  unemployed.  He  complained,  as  a  member 
of  the  House  of  Commons,  of  the  conduct  pursued  towards  the 
navy,  by  men  who  had  neither  the  ability  to  act  on  their  own  judg- 
ment, nor  the  integrity  and  good  sense  to  follow  the  advice  of 
others.  His  value  as  an  officer  was  universally  known;  and  in  a 
parliamentary  debate  which  had  reference  to  the  determination  of 


LOSS  OF  THE  ROYAL  GEORGE.  285 

Howe  to  quit  the  service,  admiral  Pigot  gave  a  strong  though 
homely  testimony  to  the  affection  of  the  sailors  for  the  brave  ad- 
miral who  had  seen  service  for  forty  years,  by  repeating  their  com- 
mon saying,  "  Give  us  Black  Dick,  and  we  fear  nothing."*  When 
the  new  administration  was  formed  in  1782,  admiral  Keppel  was 
created  a  viscount,  and  was  appointed  First  Lord  of  the  Admiralty. 
Lord  Howe  was  also  raised  to  the  peerage,  and  appointed  to  the 
command  of  a  fleet  to  be  employed  in  the  Channel,  or  wherever 
else  the  king's  service  should  require.  On  the  2oth  of  April  he 
embarked  at  Portsmouth  for  the  Texel,  to  watch  the  Dutch  fleet. 
Having  confined  the  Dutch  to  their  ports  through  the  month  of 
May,  he  received  orders  to  return  to  Spithead ;  and  was  then 
directed  to  cruise  off  Brest,  for  the  purpose  of  intercepting  the 
combined  fleets  of  France  and  Spain  which  had  sailed  from  Cadiz 
on  the  4th  of  June.  He  accomplished  the  great  object  of  prevent- 
ing the  enemy  attacking  the  West  India  convoy;  but  the  French 
and  Spaniards  successfully  evaded  a  general  action ;  and  Howe 
returned  to  Portsmouth  on  the  £th  of  August. 

A  few  weeks  were  necessary  for  Howe  to  equip  his  fleet  for 
the  important  service  of  the  relief  of  Gibraltar,  for  which  he  was 
now  ordered.  A  calamity  which,  amidst  the  dreary  catalogue  of 
disasters  at  sea,  will  probably  never  lose  its  interest,  occurred  at 
Portsmouth  during  the  short  period  of  preparation.  On  the  29th 
of  August,  the  Royal  George,  a  ship  of  a  hundred  and  eight  guns, 
suddenly  overset  in  Portsmouth  Harbour,  filled,  and  sank ;  by 
which  catastrophe,  according  to  the  inscription  upon  a  monument 
in  the  church-yard  of  Portsea,  nine  hundred  persons  perished. 
The  Royal  George  was  the  flag-ship  of  admiral  Kempenfeldt.  He 
was  in  his  cabin,  unconscious  of  any  danger ;  whilst  sailors  were 
clearing  a  lighter  alongside,  and  stowing  her  freight  of  rum  in  the 
hold  of  the  great  ship,  and  the  decks  were  crowded  with 
women  and  children  from  the  shore,  and  with  Jews  and  other 
tradesmen.  According  to  the  narrative  of  one  of  the  seamen  who 
was  saved,  the  ship  was  heeled  on  her  larboard  side,  that  the 
water-cock  which  admitted  sea-water  to  the  hold  on  the  starboard 
side  might  be  replaced  by  a  new  cock.  To  accomplish  this,  the 
whole  of  the  guns  on  the  larboard  side  were  run  out  as  far  as  they 
would  go,  and  those  of  the  starboard  side  were  drawn  in  amidship. 
About  nine  o'clock  in  the  morning,  says  this  narrative,  "  the  ad- 
ditional quantity  of  rum  on  board  the  ship,  and  also  the  quantity  of 
sea-water  which  had  dashed  in  through  the  port  holes,  brought  the 
larboard  port-holes  of  the  lower  gun-deck  nearly  level  with  the 
*  Barrow's  "  Life  of  Earl  liowe,"  p.  124. 


286  HISTORY  OF   ENGLAND. 

sea."  The  carpenter  went  on  the  quarter-deck  twice,  to  tell  the 
lieutenant  of  the  watch  that  the  ship  could  not  bear  this,  and 
begged  him  to  give  orders  to  right.  The  lieutenant's  answer  was 
very  testy ;  and  the  men  around  became  uneasy,  for  they  knew 
the  danger.  The. drummer  was  then  called,  to  beat  "to  right 
ship."  There  was  no  time  to  beat  the  drum,  for  the  ship  was 
sinking.* 

*'  It  was  not  in  the  battle  ; 

No  tempest  gave  the  shock ; 
She  sprang  no  fatal  leak  ; 
She  ran  upon  no  rock. 

"  His  sword  was  in  its  sheath ; 

His  fingers  held  the  pen, 
When  Kempenfeldt  went  down 
With  twice  four  hundred  men."t 

It  appears  from  the  minutes  of  the  Court-Martial  held  to  in- 
quire into  this  frightful  accident,  that  "  from  the  short  space  of 
time  between  the  alarm  being  given  and  the  sinking  of  the  ship, 
the  Court  was  of  opinion  that  some  material  part  of  her  frame  gave 
way,  which  can  only  be  accounted  for  by  the  general  state  of  decay 
of  her  timbers."  % 

On  the  nth  of  September  lord  Howe  sailed  from  Spithead 
with  a  fleet  of  thirty-four  sail  of  the  line,  six  frigates,  and  three 
fire-ships,  having  on  board  two  regiments  for  the  reinforcement  of 
the  garrison  at  Gibraltar,  and  conveying  transports  with  stores  for 
their  relief.  On  the  I2th  of  September,  forty-seven  sail  of  the  line, 
with  ten  battering-ships,  and  innumerable  small  craft,  were  assem- 
bled in  the  bay  of  Gibraltar,  to  co-operate  with  an  army  of  forty  thou- 
sand men  in  one  grand  attack  upon  the  fortress,  which  was  defend- 
ed by  seven  thousand  tried  veterans.  A  siege  has  since  been  con- 
ducted upon  a  grander  scale  ;  but  the  author  of  the  History  of 
this  siege  was  right  when  he  then  said,  "  Such  a  naval  and  military 
spectacle  most  certainly  is  not  to  be  equalled  in  the  annals  of  war." 
On  the  morning  of  the  I3th  the  ten  battering  ships  moored  within 
ten  or  twelve  hundred  yards  of  the  bastions  of  Gibraltar.  The  balls 
were  heated  in  the  furnaces  of  the  garrison ;  and  when  the  first 
ship  dropped  her  anchors,  the  firing  commenced  from  the  fortress. 
Before  ten  o'clock  on  that  eventful  morning  four  hundred  pieces  of 
artillery  were  playing  at  the  same  moment.  The  battering-ships 
were  as  formidable  as  they  were  represented  to  be.  The  heaviest 
shells  rebounded  from  their  tops  ;  the  thirty-two  pound  shot  seemed 
incapable  of  making  any  impression  upon  their  hulls.  Sometimes 

*  "  Penny  Magazine,"  June,  1834.  t  Cowper. 

t  Barrow's  "  Life  of  Lord  Howe,"  p.  139. 


SIEGE   OF   GIBRALTAR.  287 

a  battering-ship  appeared  to  be  on  fire,  but  the  flames  were  quickly 
extinguished  by  mechanical  contrivances.  An  Italian  officer  on  board 
the  combined  fleet  has  given  a  vivid  description  of  the  result  of  the 
persevering  fire  from  the  British  works  :  "  Our  hopes  of  ultimate 
success  became  less  sanguine  when,  at  two  o'clock,  the  floating  bat- 
tery commanded  by  the  prince  of  Nassau  (on  board  of  which  was  also 
the  engineer  who  had  invented  the  machinery)  began  to  smoke  on 
the  side  exposed  to  the  garrison,  and  it  was  apprehended  she  had 
taken  fire.  The  firing,  however,  continued  till  we  could  perceive  the 
fortifications  had  sustained  some  damage  ;  but  at  seven  o'clock  all  our 
hopes  vanished.  The  fire  from  our  floating  batteries  entirely  ceased, 
and  rockets  were  thrown  up  as  signals  of  distress.  In  short,  the  red- 
hot  balls  from  the  garrison  had  by  this  time  taken  such  good  effect, 
that  nothing  now  was  thought  of  but  saving  the  crews,  and  the 
boats  of  the  combined  fleet  were  immediately  sent  on  that  service. 
A  little  after  midnight  the  floating  battery  which  had  been  the  first 
to  show  symptoms  of  conflagration,  burst  out  into  flames,  upon 
which  the  fire  from  the  rock  was  increased  with  terrific  vengeance ; 
the  light  produced  from  the  flames  was  equal  to  noon-day,  and 
greatly  exposed  the  boats  of  the  fleet  in  removing  the  crews.  Dur- 
ing the  night  one  or  other  of  these  batteries  was  discovered  to  be 
on  fire ;  they  were  so  close  to  the  walls  that  the  balls  pierced  into 
them  full  three  feet,  but  being  made  of  solid  beds  of  green  timber, 
the  holes  closed  up  after  the  shot,  and  for  want  of  air  they  did  not 
immediately  produce  the  effect.  At  five  A.M.,  one  of  them  blew 
up  with  a  very  great  explosion,  and  soon  after  the  whole  of  them, 
having  been  abandoned  by  their  crews,  were  on  fire  fore  and  aft, 
and  many  of  their  gallant  fellows  were  indebted  to  the  exertions  of 
the  English  for  their  lives.  As  the  English  boats  were  towing  one 
of  these  batteries  into  the  Mole,  not  supposing  her  to  be  on  fire, 
she  also  blew  up."  * 

The  great  operations  of  the  i3th  of  September  were  decisive  as 
to  the  eventual  issue  of  the  siege.  Lord  Howe  entered  the  mouth 
of  the  Straits  with  his  fleet  on  the  nth  of  October.  The  combined 
fleets  of  France  and  Spain  avoided  an  engagement,  and  the  stores 
and  reinforcements  were  landed  from  the  British  squadron.  "  Gib- 
raltar," to  use  the  words  of  Mr.  Pitt,  "was  relieved  by  a  skill  and 
courage  that  baffled  superior  numbers."  A  storm  had  driven  the 
enemy's  fleet  from  the  immediate  neighbourhood  of  the  port,  and 
the  object  of  landing  the  stores  and  reinforcements  was  partially 
accomplished.  The  fleets  of  France  and  Spain,  and  the  British 
fleet,  entered  the  Mediterranean,  each  driven  by  the  storm.  Howe 

*  Barrow's  "Life  of  Lord  Howe,"  p.  133. 


288  HISTORY   OF   ENGLAND. 

drew  up  in  line  of  battle  ;  but  the  enemy  declined  to  engage,  and 
the  British  admiral  returned  to  Gibraltar,  and  completed  the  work 
for  which  he  was  sent.  An  attempt  was  made  to  cut  off  the  rear 
of  Howe's  fleet,  but  it  failed  ;  and  the  French  and  Spaniards  refus- 
ing a  general  action,  Howe  returned  to  England.  The  siege  was 
languidly  continued  during  the  winter.  On  the  6th  of  February, 
1783,  the  due  de  Crillon  informed  general  Elliott  that  the  prelim- 
inaries of  peace  had  been  signed  at  Paris  on  the  2oth  of  January, 
and  that  Gibraltar  was  to  remain  in  the  possession  of  Great  Britain. 
From  the  commencement  of  the  blockade  to  the  cessation  of  arms, 
the  siege  had  endured  three  years,  seven  months,  and  twelve  days. 
The  total  loss  of  the  garrison  was  twelve  hundred,  of  whom  only 
four  hundred  and  seventy  were  killed,  or  died  of  their  wounds, 
or  were  disabled. 

The  summer  and  part  of  the  autumn  were  employed  by  the 
British  envoy  at  Paris,  and  by  Dr.  Franklin,  in  discussions  upon 
points  that  were  essential  to  be  settled  before  the  basis  of  a  treaty 
of  peace  with  America  could  be  established.  Franklin  states 
that  Mr.  Fitzherbert  and  Mr.  Oswald,  on  the  part  of  Great  Brit- 
ain, seemed  at  first  studiously  to  avow  their  wish  not  to  use  any 
expressions  that  might  imply  an  acknowledgment  of  American  Inde- 
pendence ;  "  but  our  refusing  otherwise  to  treat,  at  length  induced 
them  to  get  over  that  difficulty,  and  then  we  came  to  the  point  of 
making  propositions."  *  Three  other  Commissioners  were  finally 
associated  with  Franklin,  Mr.  Jay,  Mr.  Adams,  and  Mr.  Laurens. 
These  associates  were  probably  able  to  set  aside  the  original  de- 
termination, so  strongly  expressed  by  Franklin  on  the  first  over- 
tures from  lord  Shelburne,  not  to  negotiate  without  the  concurrence 
of  the  other  allied  powers.  They  conceived  a  distrust  of  France, 
which  appears  to  have  been  unwarranted  ;  although  it  was  clear 
that  in  continuing  the  contest  the  allies  looked  to  exclusive  advan- 
tages alone.  Spain  could  not  readily  forego  her  wish  to  recover 
Gibraltar ;  and  even  after  the  failure  of  the  grand  attack  of  Sep- 
tember, she  persevered  in  a  demand  for  its  cession.  At  length,  on 
the  3oth  of  November,  preliminary  articles  were  signed  between 
the  Commissioner  of  Great  Britain  and  the  Commissioners  of  the 
United  States.  Franklin  communicated  the  fact  to  the  Nsouar'de 
Vergennes,  who  was  naturally  offended  at  what  he  considered  the 
infraction  of  a  mutual  promise  not  to  sign  articles  of  pacification 
except  with  the  joint  consent  of  France  and  the  United  States. 
Franklin  made  rather  an  awkward  apology  :  "  Nothing  has  been 
agreed  in  the  preliminaries  contrary  to ,  the  interests  of  France ; 

*  Works,  vol.  ix.  p.  439. 


PRELIMINARIES   OF   PEACE   SIGNED.  289 

and  no  peace  is  to  take  place  between  us  and  England,  till  you  have 
concluded  yours.  Your  observation  is,  however,  apparently  just, 
that  in  not  consulting  you  before  they  were  signed,  we  have  been 
guilty  of  neglecting  a  point  of  bienseance."  * 

The  Parliament  was  opened  by  the  king  on  the  5th  of  Decem- 
ber, the  Houses  having  met  on  the  previous  26th  of  November 
and  were  then  adjourned  in  the  expectation  of  some  definite  result 
from  the  negotiations.  The  opening  words  of  the  speech  are  very 
memorable.  His  majesty  declared  he  had  lost  no  time  in  giving 
the  necessary  orders  to  prohibit  the  further  prosecution  of  offen- 
sive war  upon  the  continent  of  North  America.  Adopting  with 
decision  what  he  collected  to  be  the  sense  of  his  parliament  and 
his  people,  h  i  had  directed  all  his  measures  to  an  entire  and  cordial 
reconciliation  with  those  colonies.  He  had  not  hesitated  to  go  the 
full  length  of  the  powers  vested  in  him,  and  had  offered  to  declare 
them  free  and  independent  States,  by  an  article  to  be  inserted  in 
the  treaty  of  peace.  Provisional  articles  had  been  agreed  upon,  to 
take  effect  whenever  terms  of  peace  should  be  finally  settled  with 
the  Court  of  France.  The  king  then  said, "  In  thus  admitting 
their  separation  from  the  crown  of  these  kingdoms  I  have  sacrificed 
every  consideration  of  my  own  to  the  wishes  and  opinions  of  my 
people.  I  make  it  my  humble  and  earnest  prayer  to  Almighty 
God,  that  Great  Britain  may  not  feel  the  evils  which  might  result 
from  so  great  a  dismemberment  of  the  empire  ;  and  that  America 
be  free  from  those  calamities  which  have  formerly  proved  in  the 
mother  country  how  essential  monarchy  is  to  the  enjoyment  of  con- 
stitutional liberty.  Religion,  language,  interest,  affections,  may,  and 
I  hope  will,  yet  prove  a  bond  of  permanent  union  between  the  two 
countries."  The  violent  debates  on  the  Address  belong  to  the 
history  of  faction  rather  than  to  the  history  of  the  country.  Tories 
were  indignant  at  the  concession  of  American  independence. 
Whigs  complained  that  the  concession  had  not  been  the  first  step 
in  the  negotiation.  Lord  Shelburne  in  former  years  had  held  that 
when  the  colonies  should  become  independent,  the  sun  of  England 
would  be  set ;  and  he  was  now  reproached  for  his  inconsistency  in 
granting  their  independence. 

On  the  2oth  of  January,  1783,  the  Preliminaries  of  Peace  were 
signed  between  Great  Britain  and  France  and  Spain.  With  Hpl- 
land  there  was  a  suspension  of  arms  ;  and  the  Preliminaries  of 
Peace  were  not  signed  until  the  2nd  of  September.  The  articles 
of  pacification  with  the  United  States,  with  the  exception  of  the 
first  article  acknowledging  their  independence,  are  now  of  minor 

*  Letter  to  Vergennes — Franklin's  Works,  vol.  ix.  p.  451. 

VOL.  VI.— 19 


290 


HISTORY  OF   ENGLAND. 


importance.  By  the  treaty  with  France,  England  ceded  St.  Lucia 
and  Tobago,  and  gained  back  Granada,  St.  Vincent's,  Dominica, 
St.  Christopher's,  Nevis,  and  Montserrat.  The  French  recovered 
some  possessions  in  Africa,  and  in  the  East  Indies.  The  old 
stipulations  for  the  demolition  of  Dunkirk  were  given  up.  To 
Spain  Great  Britain  ceded  Minorca  and  the  Floridas.  The  princi- 
ple of  the  final  treaty  with  Holland  was  on  the  basis  of  mutual 
restitution. 

Thus,  then,  was  finished  one  of  the  most  calamitous  wars  that 
England  had  ever  been  driven  into,  through  a  mistaken  view  of  the 
relative  positions  of  a  mother  country  and  her  colonies,  and  an  ob- 
stinate reliance  upon  her  power  to  enforce  obedience.  It  might 
have  been  expected  that  a  pacification  which  involved  no  humilia- 
ting conditions,  beyond  the  acknowledgment  of  that  independence 
of  the  United  States  which  it  was  no  longer  possible  to  withhold, 
would  have  been  received  with  unmingled  satisfaction.  On  the 
contrary,  a  combination  of  parties  was  entered  into  for  the  purpose 
of  removing  lord  Shelburne  and  his  ministry  ;  a  coalition  which,  to 
our  minds,  is  not  a  pleasant  exhibition  of  the  motives  which  some- 
times unite  the  most  opposite  factions  in  the  pursuit  of  power.  On 
the  1 7th  of  February,  the  two  Houses  took  into  consideration  the 
Preliminaries  of  Peace  with  France,  Spain,  and  America.  In  the 
House  of  Lords  the  ministers  carried  the  Address  of  Thanks  to  the 
Crown  by  a  majority  of  thirteen.  In  the  house  of  Commons  they 
were  defeated  by  a  majority  of  sixteen.  On  the  aist  of  February 
lord  John  Cavendish  moved  Resolutions  of  Censure  on  the  terms  of 
the  Peace,  which  were  carried  by  a  majority  of  seventeen.  Mr. 
Fox  and  Mr.  Pitt  were  on  this  occasion  brought  into  immediate 
conflict — "  the  tug  of  war  "  which  was  to  last  for  twenty  years  was 
now  begun.  The  particular  points  of  attack  or  defence  in  the  con- 
ditions of  the  peace  have  little  to  interest  us.  But  the  principles 
exhibited  by  these  great  rivals  on  so  stirring  an  occasion  have  a 
permanent  value.  Fox  defended  the  coalition  of  parties  which  some 
had  censured  ;  but  he  emphatically  proclaimed  his  adhesion  to  his 
own  party :  "  I  am  free  to  boast  of  being  connected  with  a  set  c  f 
men,  whose  principles  are  the  basis  on  which  the  state  has  for  a 
long  time  past  been  preserved  from  absolute  destruction.  It  is  to 
the  virtues  of  these  men  that  I  have  surrendered  my  private  opin- 
ions and  inclinations.  It  is  thus  only  that  I  could  prevent  myself 
from  falling  into  those  errors  which  the  prejudices,  passions,  and 
perplexities  of  human  nature,  will,  at  times,  occasion.  And  thus  I 
have  been  always  answerable  to  my  country  for  my  conduct ;  for 
in  every  public  transaction  I  have  thought  it  most  safe  to  resign 


LORD   SHELBURNE,    BEING   DEFEATED    RESIGNS.  291 

my  private  opinion,  when  I  found  it  departing  from  the  general 
opinion  of  those  with  whom  I  was  connected  by  friendship,  con- 
fidence, and  veneration.  Those  whose  virtues  claimed  my  respect, 
and  whose  abilities  my  admiration,  could  not  but  prove  the  best  di- 
rectors of  a  conduct  which,  alone,  might  fall  by  its  temerity,  or  be 
lost  by  temptation."  Pitt  was  self-reliant  in  his  own  confidence  in 
the  purity  of  his  intentions  :  "  High  situation,  and  great  influence, 
are  desirable  objects  to  most  men,  and  objects  which  I  am  not 
ashamed  to  pursue,  which  I  am  even  solicitous  to  possess,  when- 
ever they  can  be  acquired  with  honour,  and  retained  with  dignity. 
On  these  respectable  conditions,  I  am  not  less  ambitious  to  be 
great  and  powerful  than  it  is  natural  for  a  young  man,  with  such 
brilliant  examples  before  him,  to  be.  But  even  these  objects  I  am 
not  beneath  relinquishing,  the  moment  my  duty  to  my  country,  my 
character,  and  my  friends,  renders  such  a  sacrifice  indispensable. 
Then  I  hope  to  retire,  not  disappointed,  but  triumphant ;  triumph- 
ant in  the  conviction  that  my  talents,  humble  as  they  are,  have  been 
earnestly,  zealously,  and  strenuously  employed,  to  the  best  of  my 
apprehension,  in  promoting  the  truest  welfare  of  my  country ,  and 
that,  however  I  may  stand  chargeable  with  weakness  of  understand- 
ing, or  error  of  judgment,  nothing  can  be  imputed  to  my  official  ca- 
pacity which  bears  the  most  distant  connection  with  an  interested, 
a  corrupt,  or  a  dishonest  intention."  The  struggle  for  office  was 
over.  On  the  24th  of  February  lord  Shelburne  resigned.  One  of 
his  Secretaries  of  State,  lord  Grantham,  wrote  to  sir  James  Harris 
that  the  fallen  minister  trusted  too  much  to  his  measures,  and  that 
the  Parliament,  spoilt  by  long  habits  of  interest,  gave  no  credit  to 
them.*  The  measures  of  lord  Shelburne  contemplated  a  much 
wider  field  of  action  than  his  opponents,  with  the  exception  of  Burke, 
could  have  admitted  into  their  views.  In  the  king's  speech  at  the 
opening  of  the  Session,  his  majesty  recommended  a  revision  of  our 
whole  trading  system,  upon  the  same  comprehensive  and  liberal 
principles  that  had  been  adopted  concerning  the  commerce  of  Ire- 
land. There  is  a  letter  of  February,  1783,  from  Mr.  Benjamin 
Vaughan  to  Dr.  Franklin,  in  which,  speaking  of  "  the  boldness  of 
my  friend's  conduct,"  evidently  alluding  to  lord  Shelburne,  he  thus 
describes  the  views  of  the  minister  who  had  secured  peace  for  his 
country:  "You  will  take  pleasure  in  hearing  that  he  talked  of 
making  England  a  free  port,  for  which  he  said  we  were  fitted  by 
nature,  capital,  love  of  enterprise,  maritime  connections,  and  posi- 
tion between  the  Old  and  New  World,  and  the  North  and  South 
of  Europe  ;  and  that  those  who  were  best  circumstanced  for  trade, 

*  "  Correspondence  of  the  Earl  of  Malmesbury,"  vol.  i.  p.  501. 


292  HISTORY   OF    ENGLAND. 

could  not  but  be  gainers  by  having  trade  open."*  Shelburne'a 
opinions  upon  a  liberal  system  of  commerce  were  before  his  time, 
They  were  entirely  opposed  to  the  existing  ignorance  of  the  com. 
mercial  public,  and  they  would  necessarily  have  failed.  If  he  had 
remained  in  power,  the  great  trading  communities  would  have  en- 
sured his  fall,  had  he  dared  to  promulgate  the  principles  which 
could  only  be  accepted  when  England  had  received  the  enlighten- 
ment of  more  than  half  a  century's  experience. 

Jonathan  Shipley,  bishop  of  St.  Asaph,  was  an  old  and  intimate 
friend  of  Dr.  Franklin.  To  the  Bishop  the  American  philosopher 
wrote  some  words,  after  the  conclusion  of  the  peace,  which  ought 
not  to  pass  out  of  remembrance :  "  Let  us  now  forgive  and 
forget.  Let  each  country  seek  its  advancement  in  its  own  internal 
advantages  of  arts  and  agriculture,  not  in  retarding  or  preventing 
the  prosperity  of  the  other.  America  will,  with  God's  blessing,  be- 
come a  great  and  happy  country  ;  and  England,  if  she  has  at  length 
gained  wisdom,  will  have  gained  something  more  valuable,  and 
more  essential  to  prosperity,  than  all  she  has  lost ;  and  will  still  be  a 
great  and  respectable  nation."  f  To  forgive  and  forget  was  per- 
haps more  difficult  to  the  king  of  England  than  to  any  one  in  his 
dominions.  It  has  been  asserted,  and  we  think  with  much  unfair- 
ness, that  "the  intense  hatred  with  which  George  III.  regarded 
the  Americans  was  so  natural  to  such  a  mind  as  his,  that  one  can 
hardly  blame  his  constant  exhibition  of  it  during  the  time  that  the 
struggle  was  actually  impending.  But  what  is  truly  disgraceful  is, 
that,  after  the  war  was  over,  he  displayed  this  rancour  on  an  occa- 
sion when,  of  all  others,  he  was  bound  to  suppress  it."  This  asser- 
tion is  supported  by  a  statement  that  when  Jefferson  andAdams  made 
their  appearance  at  Csurt  in  1786,  George  III.  "  treated  these  emi- 
nent men  with  marked  incivility,  although  they  were  then  paying 
their  respects  to  him  in  his  own  palace. "J  John  Adams  was  the  first 
minister  of  the  United  States  accredited  to  Great  Britain.  He  was 
presented  to  the  king  in  June,  1785.  Jefferson,  who  succeeded 
Franklin  as  minister  to  France,  went  to  London  in  1786,  to  arrange 
some  treaties  in  concert  with  Adams  ;  and  he  says  that  when  he 
appeared  at  Court,  he  saw,  or  thought  he  saw,  that  "  the  ulcera- 
tions  in  the  king's  mind  left  nothing  to  be  expected  from  him  ;  " 
an'd  that,  on  his  presentation  to  their  majesties  at  their  levies,  "  it/ 
was  impossible  for  anything  to  be  more  ungracious  than  their  notice 

of  Mr.  Adams  and  myself."  §     Mr.  Buckle,  in  referring  to  these 

\ 

*  Franklin's  Works,  vol.  ix.  p.  489.  t  Ibid.,  vol.  ix.  p.  499. 

$  Buckle — "  History  of  Civilization,"  vol.  i.  p.  423. 
f  Tucker — "  Life  of  Jefferson,"  vol.  i.  p.  226. 


THE    KING   AND   THE   AMERICAN    MINISTER.  293 

passages  in  Jefferson's  correspondence,  omits  to  mention  the  re- 
markable interview  between  George  III.  and  Mr.  Adams,  on  the 
ist  of  June,  1785— an  interview  which  the  American  ambassador 
described  the  next  day,  to  the  American  Secretary,  Mr.  Jay,  in  a 
letter  of  permanent  historical  interest.  He  was  left  with  the  king,  and 
lord  Carmarthen,  the  secretary  of.  state,  alone.  He  presented  his 
letter  of  credence  as  Minister  Plenipotentiary,  and  expressed  the 
desire  of  the  United  States  to  cultivate  the  most  liberal  and  friendly 
intercourse  between  his  majesty's  subjects  and  their  citizens.  He 
then  said,  "  The  appearance  of  a  Minister  from  the  United  States 
to  your  majesty's  Court  will  form  an  epoch  in  the  history  of  Eng- 
land and  America.  I  think  myself  more  fortunate  than  all  my  fel- 
low citizens,  in  having  the  distinguished  honour  to  be  the  first  to 
stand  in  your  majesty's  royal  presence  in  a  diplomatic  character ; 
and  I  shall  esteem  myself  the  happiest  of  men  if  I  can  be  instru- 
mental in  recommending  my  country  more  and  more  to  your  maj- 
esty's royal  benevolence,  and  of  restoring  an  entire  esteem,  confi- 
dence, and  affection,  or,  in  better  words,  '  the  old  good  nature,'  and 
the  good  old  humour,  between  people,  who,  though  separated 
by  an  •ocean,  and  under  different  governments,  have  the  same 
language,  a  similar  religion,  a  kindred  blood.  I  beg  your  majesty's 
permission  to  add  that  although  I  have  sometimes  before  been 
entrusted  by  my  country,  it  was  never  in  my  whole  life  in  a  man- 
ner so  agreeable  to  myself." 

Mr.  Adams,  in  continuing  his  narrative,  says  that  the  king  lis- 
tened to  every  word  he  said,  with  an  apparent  emotion ;  that  he 
was  himself  much  agitated  ;  but  that  his  majesty  "  was  much  affect- 
ed, and  answered  me  with  more  tremor  than  I  had  spoken  with." 
The  king  said,  "  Sir — the  circumstances  of  this  audience  are  so 
extraordinary,  the  language  you  have  now  held  is  so  extremely 
proper,  and  the  feelings  you  have  discovered  so  justly  adapted  to 
the  occasion,  that  I  must  say,  that  I  not  only  receive  with  pleasure 
the  assurance  of  the  friendly  disposition  of  the  United  States,  but 
that  I  am  very  glad  the  choice  has  fallen  upon  you  to  be  their 
Minister.  I  wish  you,  sir,  to  believe,  and  that  it  maybe  understood 
in  America,  that  I  have  done  nothing  in  the  late  contest  but  what  I 
thought  myself  indispensably  bound  to  do,  by  the  duty  which  I 
owed  to  my  people.  I  will  be  very  frank  with  you.  I  was  the 
last  to  conform  to  the  separation ;  but  the  separation  having  been 
made,  and  having  become  inevitable,  I  have  always  said,  as  I  say 
now,  that  I  would  be  the  first  to  meet  the  friendship  of  the  United 
States  as  an  Independent  Power.  The  moment  I  see  such  senti- 
ments and  language  as  yours  prevail,  and  a  disposition  to  give  this 


2Q4  HISTORY  OF   ENGLAND. 

country  the  preference,  that  moment  I  shall  say,  let  the  circuny 
stances  of  language,  religion,  and  blood,  have  their  natural  and  full 
effect."  * 

There  is  one  man  who  was  the  chief  instrument  in  the  hands 
of  Providence  for  conducting  the  war,  by  his  energy,  prudence,  and 
constancy,  to  that  triumphant  assertion  of  Independence  which 
has  built  up  the  great  North  American  republic.  To  Washington 
the  historian  naturally  turns,  as  to  the  grandest  object  of  contem- 
plation, when  he  laid  aside  his  victorious  sword, — that  sword 
which,  with  those  he  had  worn  in  his  earlier  career,  he  bequeathed 
to  his  nephews  with  words  characteristic  of  his  nobleness  :  "  These 
swords  are  accompanied  with  an  injunction  not  to  unsheathe  them 
for  the  purpose  of  shedding  blood,  except  it  be  for  self-defence,  or 
in  defence  of  their  country  and  its  rights  ;  and  in  the  latter  case,  to 
keep  them  unsheathed,  and  prefer  falling  with  them  in  their  hands 
to  the  relinquishment  thereof."  f  On  the  4th  of  December,  1782, 
Washington  bade  farewell  to  the  principal  officers  of  his  army. 
He  filled  a  glass  and  said,  "  With  a  heart  full  of  love  and  gratitude, 
I  now  take  leave  of  you.  I  most  devoutly  wish  that  your  latter 
days  may  be  as  prosperous  and  happy  as  your  former  ones  have 
been  glorious  and  honourable."  He  asked  that  each  companion  in 
arms  should  come  and  take  him  by  the  hand.  In  silence  the  friend- 
ly grasp  was  given  and  returned,  as  each  passed  before  him.  On 
the  2oth  of  December  the  commander  of  the  American  armies  re- 
signed his  commission  to  a  deputation  from  Congress,  in  a  modest 
speech,  of  which  these  were  the  concluding  words  :  "  Having  now 
finished  the  work  assigned  me,  I  retire  from  the  great  theatre  of 
action  ;  and,  bidding  farewell  to  the  august  body  under  whose  or- 
ders I  have  so  long  acted,  I  here  offer  my  commission,  and  take 
my  leave  of  all  the  employments  of  my  public  life."  Eight  days 
after  this  act,  he  wrote  to  a  friend — "  I  feel  myself  eased  of  a  load 
of  public  care.  I  hope  to  spend  the  remainder  of  my  days  in  cul- 

*  Works  of  John  Adams,  vol.  viii.  The  remaining  passage  of  the  official  letter  of  Mr. 
Adams  is  sufficient  evidence  that  the  king  did  not  treat  the  first  eminent  American  who 
came  into  his  presence  with  "  marked  incivility.  "  "  The  king  then  asked  me  whether  I 
came  last  from  France  ;  and  upon  my  answering  in  the  affirmative,  he  put  on  an  air  of 
familiarity,  and  smiling,  or  rather,  laughing,  said,  'There  is  an  opinion  among  some 
people  that  you  are  not  the  most  attached  of  all  your  countrymen  to  the  manners  of 
France.'  I  was  surprised  at  this,  because  I  thought  it  an  indiscretion,  and  a  descent 
from  his  dignity.  I  was  a  little  embarrassed,  but  determined  not  to  deny  the  truth  on  the 
one  hand,  nor  leave  him  to  infer  from  it  any  .attachment  to  England  on  the  other.  I 
threw  off  as  much  gravity  as  I  could,  and  assumed  an  air  of  gaiety  and  a  tone  of  decision 
as  far  as  was  decent,  and  said,  '  That  opinion,  Sir,  is  not  mistaken  ;  I  must  avow  to  your/ 
majesty  I  have  no  attachment  but  to  my  own  country.*  The  king  replied  as  quick  ac 
lightning,  '  An  honest  mi  w-'l  never  have  any  other.'  " 

t  Will  of  Washington,"  i7W. 


WASHINGTON   RETIRES   TO    PRIVATE   LIFE.  295 

rivaling  the  affections  of  good  men,  and  in  the  practice  of  the 
domestic  virtues."  There  was  public  work  for  Washington  yet  to 
do — the  work  of  "  directing  the  formation  of  a  new  government  for 
a  great  people,  the  first  time  that  so  vast  an  experiment  had  ever 
been  tried  by  man — finally  retiring  from  the  supreme  power  to  which 
his  virtue  had  raised  him  over  the  nation  he  had  created,  and  whose 
destinies  he  had  guided  as  long  as  his  aid  was  required."  * 

*  Lord  Brougham — "  Statesmen,"  vol.  ii.  p.  333. 


2Q6  HISTORY   OF   ENGLAND. 


CHAPTER  XXVI. 

Political  despondency  at  the  close  of  the  American  War.— Supposed  decay  of  Population. 
— Its  real  increase. — Development  of  the  productive  povret  of  the  country. — Agricul- 
ture extended  and  improved. — Agricultural  condition  of  the  Eastern,  South  Midland, 
North  Midland,  and  South  Eastern,  counties. — Norfolk. — Mr.  Coke. — Suffolk. — 
Essex.  —  Buckinghamshire.  —  Oxfordshire.  —  Northamptonshire.  —  Bedfordshire.  — 
Francis,  duke  of  Bedford. — Improved  breeds  of  sheep  and  oxen.— Robert  Bakewell. 
— Consumption  of  animal  food  in  England.— Cambridgeshire. — Lincolnshire. — The 
Great  Level  of  the  Fens.— Lincoln  Heath  and  the  Wolds.  —  Nottinghamshire. — 
Derbyshire. — Surrey. — Middlesex. — Kent. — Sussex. — Hants. — Berkshire. — Windsor 
Forest. 

THE  summer  which  followed  the  close  of  the  American  war  is 
described  as  "  an  amazing  and  portentous  one."  *  There  were 
alarming  meteors  and  tremendous  thunder  storms.  For  many 
weeks  of  June,  July,  and  August,  the  sun  was  clouded  over  with  a 
smoky  fog  that  proceeded  from  whatever  quarter  the  wind  blew. 
At  noon,  it  cast  "a  rust-coloured  ferruginous  light;  "  at  rising  and 
setting,  it  was  "lurid  and  blood-coloured."  f  The  phenomenon 
prevailed  over  the  whole  of  Europe.  The  people  looked  with  a 
superstitious  awe  on  the  "  disastrous  twilight."  The  poet  asked  of 
contending  factions, 

"  Is  it  a  time  to  wrangle,  when  the  props 
And  pillars  of  our  planet  seem  to  fail  ; 
And  Nature  with  a  dim  and  sickly  eye 
To  wait  the  close  of  all  ?  "  J 

With  "  fear  of  change,"  naonarchs  were  perplexed.  Politicians  of 
every  rank,  subject  as  Englishmen  are  to  skiey  influences,  then 
especially  believed  that  their  country  was  ruined.  Sir  John  Sin- 
clair, one  of  the  most  enlightened  men  of  his  time,  who,  with  a 
few  others,  had  confidence  in  the  resources  of  British  spirit  and 
industry,  ventured  to  hold  a  different  opinion.  He  says,  that  in 
1783,  in  the  midst  of  such  terror  and  despondency,  he  hesitated  not 
to  assert  that  Britain  might  still  preserve  its  elevated  rank  amongst 
the  powers  of  Europe,  although  his  ideas  were  then  considered  vis- 
ionary^ He  rested  his  confidence  upon  the  principle  that  debts 
and  taxes  were  not  alone  sufficient  to  effect  the  ruin  of  a  nation  ; 

*  White's  "  Selborne,"  Letter  Ixr.  *  Ibid.  \  Cowper,  "  Task,"  book,  ii. 

§"  History  of  the  Revenue,"  vol.  ii.,  Appendix  IT, 


POLITICAL    DESPONDENCY. 


297 


and  he  was  supported  by  the  fact,  that  for  a  century  previous  the 
same  gloomy  prognostications  had  always  resulted  in  the  undenia- 
ble advance  of  the  country  in  material  prosperity.  Some  of  these 
prognostications  were  not  the  mere  clamours  of  popular  ignorance 
or  factious  exaggeration,  or  foreign  jealousy.  Lord  Lyttleton,  in 
1739;  lord  Bolingbroke,  in  1745;  David  Hume,  in  1761;  Adam 
Smith,  in  1776;  Dr.  Price,  in  1777;  lord  Stair,  in  1783,— each 
honestly  believed  that  England  was  fast  approaching  the  condition 
of  inevitable  bankruptcy.  In  1784.  marshal  Conway,  who,  as  one 
of  the  Shelburne  administration,  had  been  ejected  from  power  in 
the  previous^  year,  writes  to  his  brother, — "  I  feel  rather  obliged 
than  angry  at  all  those  who  have  any  how  contributed  to  shuffle  me 
out  of  the  most  troublesome  and  dangerous  scene  this  country  was 
ever  engaged  in.  I  don't  defcire  to  be  an  actor  in  the  ruin  of  my 
country;  and  if  the  vessel  must  sink,  I  had  rather  be  a  passenger 

than  the  pilot The  sums  spent  in  losing  America  are  a  blow 

we  shall  never  recover."  * 

The  statesmen  and  economists  who  predicted  absolute  ruin 
from  any  increase  of  the  Public  Debt  beyond  a  certain  maximum 
— twenty-five  millions,  or  a  hundred  millions — never  appear  to  have 
adequately  contemplated  the  possibility  of  the  productive  power  of 
the  country  keeping  pace  with  the  additional  load  of  taxation.  Sit 
William  Blackstone,  who  in.  general  exhibits  a  pleasant  optimism 
as  to  matters  of  government,  speaks  out  very  plainly  as  to  the  in- 
conveniences of  enormous  taxes  caused  by  the  magnitude  of  na- 
tional  incumbrances.  He  tells  the  public  creditor  that  money  in 
the  funds  does  really  and  intrinsically  exist  only  in  "the  land,  the 
trade,  and  the  personal  industry  of  the  subject,  from  which  the 
money  must  arise  that  supplies  the  several  taxes."  f  The  pledges 
for  the  security  of  these  debts  being  thus  defined,  the  question  of 
the  security  can  only  be  answered  by  estimating  the  capacity  of  a 
country  to  make  constant  advances  in  a  course  of  material  improv- 
ment. 

The  common  notions  of  the  decline  of  England  that  prevailed 
during  the  first  and  second  decades  of  the  reign  of  George  III. 
were  associated  with  the  vehement  assertion  that  her  population 
was  decreasing.  Poets  and  statists  equally  maintained  that "  wealth 
accumulates  and  men  decay."J  Goldsmith  admits  that  the  depopula- 
tion which  his  exquisite  poem  deplores,  is  affirmed  by  several  of  his 
wisest  and  best  friends  as  "  no  where  to  be  seen."  Yet  Goldsmith 
had  supporters  in  his  opinion,  who  had  no  pretensions  to  "  the 

*  MS.  Letter  in  the  possession  of  the  author  of  the  "  Popular  History." 

t  Kerr's  edit.  vol.  i.  p.  322.  t  "  Deserted  Village." 


2g8  HISTORY   OF    ENGLAND. 

poet's  imagination."  Dr.  Price  maintained,  in  1777,  that  England 
and  Wales  contained  no  more  than  4,763,000  souls.  Arthur  Young, 
in  1770,  says,  "it  is  asserted  by  those  writers  who  affect  to  run 
down  our  affairs,  that,  rich  as  we  are,  our  population  has  suffered  : 
that  we  have  lost  a  million  and  a  half  of  people  since  the  Revolu- 
tion ;  and  that  we  are  at  present  declining  in  numbers."  *  The 
estimates  of  Gregory  King,  founded  upon  the  Return  of  the 
Hearth-money  collectors,  exhibited  a  population  of  five  millions  and 
a  half  at  the  period  of  the  Revolution-!  Either  those  estimates 
were  utterly  fallacious,  and  ought  to  have  shown  a  million  and  a 
half  less  of  people  ;  or  the  belief  was  a  delusion  that  "  it  is  employ- 
ment that  creates  population"  —  that  "all  industrious  countries 
are  populous,  and  proportionally  to  the  degree  of  their  industry."  £ 
From  the  accession  of  George  I.  to  the  war  with  the  North  Amer- 
ican Colonies,  —  a  period  of  sixty  years,  —  the  country  had  been 
steadily  progressing  in  a  course  of  improvement  ;  in  partial  inclos- 
ures  of  cultivable  waste  land,  in  better  methods  of  husbandry,  in 
extension  of  manufactures,  in  more  complete  means  of  internal 
communication.  The  advance  was  slow,  compared  with  what  re- 
mained to  be  done.  An  elaborate  and  careful  statistical  writer  of 
1774,  in  setting  forth  the  improving  position  of  the  country,  puts 
in  the  title-page  of  his  work  that  it  is  "  intended  to  show  that  we 
have  not  as  yet  approached  near  the  summit  of  improvement,  but 
that  it  will  afford  employment  to  many  generations  before  they 
push  to  their  utmost  extent  the  natural  advantages  of  Great  Brit- 
ain." §  Could  this  sensible  writer  have  contemplated  the  possible 
approaches  to  "  the  summit  of  improvement,"  made  by  only  two 
generations,  his  readers  of  that  period  would  have  regarded  him  as 
a  madman.  Yet  at  that  period  the  industrial  energies  of  the  people 
were  stimulated  to  turn  aside  from  the  beaten  track  in  many  new 
directions.  The  capability  of  Britain  greatly  to  multiply  her  resour- 
ces began  to  be  dimly  perceived.  We  now  know,  as  a  reliable 
fact,  that  population  had  increased,  and  was  increasing. 

A  comparison  of  the  excess  of  Baptisms  over  Burials,  corrected 
by  the  experience  of  positive  enumerations,  shows,  that  from  1751 
to  1781,  the  population  had  increased  at  a  rate  exceeding  400,000 
for  each  decennial  period  ;  the  increase  in  the  whole  of  the  previous 
fifty  years  having  been  little  above  200,000.  Upon  that  increase 
of  nearly  a  million  and  a  quarter  in  thirty  years,  there  was  a  still 
larger  increase  of  more  than  a  (nillion  and  a  half  in  the  twenty  years. 


*  Young,  "  Northern  Tour,"  vol.  iv.  p.    ^-__\^nte,  vol.  iv.  p.  384,  and  Table,  p.  438. 

t  Young,  "  Northern  Tour,"  vol.  iv.  p.  551. 

§  Dr.  Campbell,  "  Political  Survey,"  2  vels.  410, 


AGRICULTURE    EXTENDED    AND    IMPROVED.  209 

from  1781  to  iSoi.*  The  start  in  the  national  industry,  supplying 
new  sources  of  profitable  labour,  and  new  means  of  subsistence,  to 
increasing  numbers,  appears  to  have  been  singularly  concurrent 
with  that  outburst  of  public  spirit  which  attended  the  administra- 
tion of  the  first  William  Pitt.  The  shutting  up  of  one  portion  of 
British  commerce  by  the  war  with  America  had  no  permanent  effect 
upon  the  development  of  the  general  prosperity  of  the  country  ; 
although  we  are  in  no  condition  to  judge  how  far  that  development 
might  have  been  impeded  by  the  waste  of  capital  in  war.  The 
industrial  period,  from  the  accession  of  George  III.  to  the  war  of 
the  French  Revolution,  is  a  very  interesting  one  to  be  described 
in  detail.  We  apply  ourselves  to  the  task,  in  something  like  a  con- 
tinuation of  the  plan  of  that  general  view  of  National  Progress 
which  we  have  given  at  the  period  of  the  accession  of  the  House 
of  Hanover,  and  partially  through  the  reign  of  George  I.  f 

Arthur  Young,  one  of  the  most  exact  of  those  economical  in- 
quirers who  had  no  official  data  upon  which  to  found  their  calcula- 
tions, in  reckoning  the  entire  population,  In  1770,  at  8,500,000  souls, 
appears  to  have  over-estimated  the  total  number  by  about  a  million 
and  a  quarter.  The  population  of  agriculture,  exclusive  of  land- 
lords, clergy,  and  parochial  poor,  he  reckoned  at  2,800,000.  The 
number  of  farmers  he  reckoned  at  in, 498;  of  men-servants  and 
labourers,  at  557,490.  In  the  census  of  1851,  we  have  a  return 
for  England  and  Wales  of  225,318  occupiers  of  land,  employing 
1,445,067  labourers.  The  farmers  would  thus  appear  to  have 
doubled  in  eighty  years  ;  the  labourers  to  have  almost  trebled. 
This  comparative  estimate,  imperfect  as  it  is,  enables  us  to  form 
some  notion  of  the  agricultural  industry  of  those  eighty  years,  as 
giving  the  means  of  subsistence  to  all  who  were  employed  upon  the 
land.  But  the  improvement  appears  far  more  striking  when  we 
consider  that,  in  1770, — taking  the  population  at  Young's  estimate 
of  8,500,000,  and  reckoning  the  adult  males  at  a  fourth  of  that  num- 
ber,— one-third  of  the  adult  male  population,  as  enumerated  by  him, 
was  employed  in  providing  food  for  themselves  and  their  families, 
and  for  the  other  two-thirds  of  the  population  ;  in  other  words, 
whilst  one  man  was  cultivating  the  land,  two  men  were  engaged  in 
other  occupations.  This  proportion  indicates  a  high  state  of 
civilization.  But  a  much  higher  condition  was  reached  in  1851, 
when  only  26  per  cent,  of  the  adult  males  were  agricultural  ;  that 
is,  whilst  one  man  was  cultivating  the  land,  three  men  were  engaged 
in  some  other  employment.  *The  ascendancy  of  scientific  theory 

*  "  Report  on  the  Census  of  1851,"  p.  Ixviii. 
t  Ante,  vol.  iv.  chapters  XIX.  and  XX. 


300  HISTORY   OF   ENGLAND. 

over  traditional  practice  has  produced  this  striking  change ;  and 
that  ascendancy  has  been  called  forth  more  and  more  by  the  cer- 
tainty of  the  profitable  application  of  capital  to  agricultural  enter- 
prise. This  application  of  capital,  in  the  first  twenty  years  of  the 
reign  of  George  III.,  may  be  in  some  degree  indicated  by  the 
circumstance  that  the  Inclosure  Bills  passed  from  1760  to  1779 
were  more  than  a  thousand  in  number.  Improved  methods  of 
husbandry  were  concurrent  with  this  extension  of  the  area  of  cul- 
tivation. The  great  features  of  this  period  of  the  development  of 
the  vast  productive  powers  of  the  soil  are  very  marked  ;  and  with- 
out touching  upon  the  technicalities  of  agricultural  science,  we  may 
not  unprofitably  enter  upon  such  a  general  view  of  the  condition  of 
particular  districts,  as  may  show  how  earnestly  many  were  then 
labouring  to  make  two  blades  of  grass  grow  where  one  grew  before 
and  yet  how  much  they  left  to  be  done  by  the  labours  of  other  gen- 
erations. Incidentally  we  shall  notice  the  condition  and  manners 
of  the  rural  population. 

We  commenced  our  previous  general  view  of  the  National  In- 
dustry with  a  brief  survey  of  the  West  of  England,  the  seat  of  the 
greatest  commercial  and  manufacturing  prosperity  at  the  beginning 
of  the  eighteenth  century.  We  now  propose  to  make  a  similiar 
examination  of  the  agricultural  condition  of  the  East  of  England, 
continuing  our  former  sketch  of  the  development  of  the  resources 
of  that  portion  of  our  island.  We  use  the  term  "  East "  as  a 
general  phrase,  in  the  same  way  that  Arthur  Young  used  it  in  his 
"  Farmer's  Tour  through  the  East  of  England."  If  a  line  be  drawn 
from  the  British  Channel,  keeping  to  the  east  of  the  Avon,  on  to 
the  Humber,  also  keeping  to  the  east  of  the  Trent,  it  will  include 
four  of  our  great  Registration  Divisions,  in  which  pastoral  and 
agricultural  industry  is  the  predominant  feature  now,  as  it  has  been 
from  the  earliest  times.  These  divisions, — the  Eastern,  the  South 
Midland,  the  North  Midland,  the  South  Eastern, — comprise  twenty 
counties  out  of  the  forty  of  England.  Their  progress  in  population 
was  not  very  marked  till  after  the  beginning  of  the  present  century. 
According  to  Gregory  King  they  numbered,at  the  Revolution,  2,364,- 
735  souls.  They  had  increased,  in  the  census  of  1801,  to  3,078,591 ; 
but  in  that  of  1851,  to  5,674,494.  They  always  fully  kept  pace  with  the 
general  advance  of  the  population  of  England  and  Wales,  amount- 
ing, as  nearly  as  may  be,  to  one-third  of  the  whole,  at  the  three^ 
several  periods.  * 

"  All  England  may  be  carved  out  of  Norfolk,  and  represented 
therein,"  says  the  quaint  Thomas  Fuller.  He  there  saw  fens  and 

*  See  Table,  ante,  vol.  iv.  p-  438. 


NORFOLK. 


301 


heaths,  light  and  deep  soils,  sand  and  clay,  meadows  and  pasture, 
arable  and  woodlands.  The  variety  of  the  shire  made  its  ancient 
cultivation  necessarily  as  various.  Experimental  agriculture  pro- 
ceeded very  slowly.  The  fens  were  undrained ;  the  sands  were 
unmarled.  Gradually  Norfolk,  and  its  neighbour  Suffolk,  became 
the  nurseries  of  what  was  termed  "the  new  husbandry."  Arthur 
Young  states  that  at  a  period  not  beyond  sixty  years,  forty  years, 
and  even  thirty  years,  from  the  time  when  he  travelled  through 
Norfolk,  all  the  northern  and  western,  and  a  part  of  the  eastern, 
tracts  of  the  country  were  sheep-walks,  let  as  low  as  from  6d.  to  i s. 
6d.,  or  2.s.  an  acre.*  The  great  change  came  with  inclosures,  long 
leases,  and  large  farms,  by  the  marling  of  light  lands,  and  by  the 
introduction  of  an  excellent  course  of  crops,  in  which  the  culture  of 
turnips  and  clover  was  the  distinguishing  feature.  "Turnips  on 
well-manured  land,  thoroughly  hoed,  are  the  only  fallow  in  the 
Norfolk  course."  Farmers  in  many  other  districts  had  attempted 
the  turnip  husbandry,  but  found  it  unprofitable  through  their  own 
ignorance  and  slovenliness.  In  the  East  Riding  of  Yorkshire  very 
few  would  incur  the  labour  of  hoeing  their  turnips,  f  Some  alleged 
that  small  turnips  were  better  than  large,  because  the  sheep  would 
eat  up  the  small  and  leave  much  of  the  large.  The  wisest  of  the 
Norfolk  farmers  sliced  their  turnips,  even  without  a  special  machine 
for  saving  that  labour.  The  four-course  system  of  crops  was  that  of 
the  Norfolk  farmers — turnips,  barley,  clover,  wheat.  Many  other 
cultivators  attempted  to  obtain  two  and  even  three  white  crops  in 
succession,  and  then  left  the  land  to  recruit  itself  in  a  year,  or  seve- 
ral years  of  barrenness,  in  which  the  rapid  growth  of  weeds  made  the 
supposed  rest  a  real  exhaustion.  Six  years  after  Arthur  Young  had 
been  eulogizing  the  husbandry  of  a  portion  of  Norfolk,  Mr.  Coke 
came  into  possession  of  his  estate  at  Holkham.  In  that  year  of  1776 
the  whole  district  was  uninclosed.  The  only  wheat  consumed  in 
that  part  of  the  county  was  imported.  Mr.  Coke  "  converted  West 
Norfolk  from  a  rye-growing  to  a  corn-growing  district."  J  But  he 
did  something  even  better.  Unable  to  let  his  estate  even  at  five 
shillings  an  acre,  he  determined  to  become  a  farmer  himself.  He 
did  not  set  about  his  work  with  the  self-conceit  that  might  have 
been  produced  by  a  large  fortune  and  high  connections.  He 
gathered  about  him  all  the  practical  agriculturists  of  his  district, 
who  came  once  a  year  to  partake  his  hospitality,  and  to  communicate 
their  experience  to  the  spirited  young  man  who  wanted  to  learn. 

*  "  Eastern  Tour,"  vol.  li.  p.  150. 
t  "  Northern  Tour,"  vol.  i.  p.  247. 
t  Earl  Spencer  in  "  Jou--aal  of  RC-M!  Agricultural  Society,"  vol.  iii.  p.  i. 


502  HISTORY   OF    ENGLAND. 

He  very  soon  was  enabled  to  become  an  instructor  himself.  The 
annual  sheep-shearings  of  Holkham  grew  famous  throughout  the 
civilized  world.  Men  came  from  every  quarter  to  see  a  great 
English  gentleman— who  had  raised  his  rents  from  tens  to  hundreds, 
and  had  yet  enriched  his  tenants  as  much  as  himself, — mixing,  with 
a  far  nobler  simplicity  than  that  of  the  feudal  times,  with  guests  of 
every  rank ;  seeking  from  the  humblest  yeoman  who  was  earnest 
in  his  calling  the  knowledge  of  some  new  fact  that  would  benefit 
his  district  and  his  country.  Mr.  Coke's  agricultural  knowledge 
was  not  mere  theory.  He  taught  the  Norfolk  farmers  to  turn  their 
turnip-husbandry  to  a  better  use  than  that  of  producing  manure,  by 
teaching  them  how  to  improve  the  qualities  of  their  stock,  in  the 
judgment  of  which  he  was  thoroughly  skilled.  During  his  long 
life  he  had  the  satisfaction  of  seeing  most  of  the  triumphs  of  scien- 
tific husbandry;  and  his  example  pointed  the  way  to  that  continued 
course  of  improvement  which  has  effected  such  marvels  since  the 
British  agriculturist  became  self-reliant,  and  saw  that  his  prosperity 
needed  no  protective  laws  to  maintain  a  supply  of  food  quite  com- 
mensurate with  the  rapid  multiplication  of  the  people. 

The  agriculture  of  many  parts  of  Suffolk  is  described  by  Arthur 
Young  as  emphatically  "  true  husbandry."  He  says,  "  those  who 
exalt  the  agriculture  of  Flanders  so  high  in  comparison  with  that 
of  Britain,  have  not,  I  imagine,  viewed  with  attention  the  country 
in  question."  Thomas  Tusser,  who  was  a  Suffolk  farmer  in  the 
middle  of  the  sixteenth  century,  attributes  the  plenty  of  Suffolk — 
the  mutton,  beef,  corn,  butter,  cheese,  and  the  abundant  work  for 
the  labouring  man — to  the  system  of  inclosures,  which  he  contrasts 
with  the  common  fields  of  Norfolk.  Suffolk,  as  well  as  Essex,  was 
very  early  a  country  "  inclosed  into  petty  quillets,"  according  to 
Fuller,  whence  the  proverb  "  Suffolk  stiles,"  and  "  Essex  stiles." 
Sir  John  Cullum,  in  1784,  describes  the  drainage  of  the  arable  lands 
as  the  great  improvement  that  had  fertilized  spots  that  before 
produced  but  little.  The  farmer  was  no  longer  content  to  let  his 
soil  be  "  water-slain,"  the  old  expressive  term  in  Suffolk  for  un- 
drained  wet  land.  He  knew  nothing  of  draining-tiles  ;  but  he  cut'~"\ 
drains  two  feet  deep,  and  wedge-shaped,  filling  them  with  bushes, 
and  with  haulm  over  the  bushes.  Sir  John  shows  how  the  cultiva-  J 
tors  had  learned  the  value  of  manure,  instead  of  evading  the 
pulsory  clause  of  their  leases  by  which  they  were  bound  not  to 
sell  the  manure  made  in  their  own  yards.  He  paints,  as  "  the 
late  race  of  farmers,"  those  who  "lived  in  the  midst  of  their 
enlightened  neighbours,  like  beings  of  another  order.  In  their 
personal  labour  they  were  indefatigable. ;  in  their  dress,  homely  ;  in 


SUFFOLK   LABOURERS. 


303 


their  manners,  rude."  Their  "  enlightened  neighbours,"  he  says, 
lived  in  well-furnished  houses ;  actually  knew  the  use  of  the  barom- 
eter ;  and  instead  of  exhibiting  at  church  the  cut  "of  a  coat  half 
a  century  old,  they  had  every  article  of  dress  spruce  and  modern. 
The  ancient  farmers  had,  however,  a  spirit  of  emulation  amongst 
them,  which  they  displayed  in  the  drawing-matches  of  their  famous 
Suffolk  punches — that  wonderful  breed  of  which  two  would  plough 
an  acre  of  strong  wheat  land  in  one  day.  We  have  the  details  of  a 
drawing-match  in  1 724.*  Young  says  of  this  breed,  that  "  they 
are  all  taught  to  draw  in  concert  ;  that  teams  would  fall  upon 
their  knees  at  the  word  of  command,  and  at  a  variation  of  the  word 
would  rise  and  put  out  all  their  strength. "f  Improving  as  was  the 
general  agriculture  upon  the  good  lands  of  Suffolk,  the  sandy  dis- 
tricts on  the  shores  of  the  Channel  were  in  a  miserable  condition, 
before  some  tincture  of  geological  science  had  taught  the  cultiva- 
tor to  look  for  the  elements  of  "fertility  in  the  organic  matter  below 
the  sand.  Crabbe,  with  his  exquisite  fidelity,  had  described  the 
husbandry  of  his  own  native  district  of  the  river  Aide.  It  is  a 
most  impressive  picture,  not  only  of  the  peculiar  barrenness  of  that 
district,  but  of  other  districts  where  slovenly  cultivation  had  not 
called  forth  the  resources  of  art  to  aid  the  churlishness  of  nature  : 

"  Lo !  where  the  heath,  with  withering  brake  grown  o'er, 
Lends  the  light  turf  that  warms  the  neigbouring  poor, 
From  thence  a  length  of  burning  sand  appears, 
Where  the  thin  harvest  waves  its  wither'd  ears  ; 
Rank  weeds,  that  every  art  and  care  defy, 
Reign  o'er  the  land,  and  rob  the  blighted  rye  : 
There  thistles  stretch  their  prickly  arms  afar, 
And  to  the  ragged  infant  threaten  war ; 
There  poppies  nodding  mock  the  hope  of  toil  ; 
There  the  blue  bugloss  paints  the  sterile  soil ; 
Hardy  and  high,  above  the  slender  sheaf, 
The  slimy  mallow  waves  her  silky  leaf  ; 
O'er  the  young  shoot  the  charlock  throws  a  shade, 
And  clasping  tares  cling  round  the  sickly  blade,  "t 

The  Suffolk  labourers  were  fed  abundantly,  but  somewhat 
coarsely.  They  ate  their  country's  rye-bread  with  their  country's 
stony  cheese—"  too  hard  to  bite,"  as  Bloomfield  found  it :  whilst 
the  farmer  luxuriated  in  his  "  meslin  bread,"  half  wheat  and  half 
rye.  The  plough-boy's  breakfast  was  the  brown  bread  soaked  in 
skimmed  milk.  When  the  country  was  over-run  with  rabbits,  be- 
fore the  improved  system  of  agriculture  was  introduced,  the 
in-door  servants  stipulated  that  they  should  not  be  fed  with 

*  "  History  of  Hawsted,"  chap.  iv.  t  "  Eastern  Tour,"  vol.  ii.  p.  174- 

J  "The  Village,"  bookii. 


304  HISTORY   OF    ENGLAND. 

"  hollow-meat,"  as  rabbit  flesh  was  termed,  more  than  a  certain 
number  of  days  in  the  week.*  Fuller  speaks  of  the  rabbits  of 
Norfolk  as  "  an  army  of  natural  pioneers" — the  great  suppliers  of 
the  fur  for  the  gowns  of  grave  citizens,  and  of  "  half  beavers,"  the 
common  hats.f  The  trencher  was  not  then  superseded  by  pewter 
and  earthenware.  The  old  simplicity  was  not  gone  out : — 

"  Between  her  swagging  panniers'  load 
A  farmer's  wife  to  market  rode."  t 

The  good  matron  looked  impatiently  for  the  "  pack  man,"  who 
came  to  her  gate  periodically  with  fineries  from  Norwich  ;  or  Ips- 
wich ;  and  with  smuggled  tea  from  the  eastern  coast,  when  three- 
fifths  of  the  tea  used  was  clandestinely  imported.  She  delighted 
in  the  housewifery  of  the  "  horky,"  when  the  last  load  had  come 
home  with  garlands  and  flags,  and  the  lord  of  the  harvest,  the 
principal  reaper,  led  the  procession,  to  be  led  home  himself  when 
the  strong  ale  had  done  its  work. 

Norfolk  and  Suffolk  are  now  the  principal  seats  of  the  manu- 
facture of  those  implements  which,  in  1851,  were  held  to  have 
saved  one-half  of  the  outlay  of  a  period  only  twelve  years  previous, 
in  the  cultivation  of  a  definite  amount  of  crop.  The  Suffolk 
"  Farmer's  Boy "  describes  the  rude  plough  (probably  almost 
wholly  made  of  wood)  in  which  "  no  wheels  support  the  diving- 
pointed  share."  The  boy  did  not  take  kindly  to  the  swing-plough, 
which  was  more  difficult  to  guide.  From  ridge  to  ridge  moves 
"  the  ponderous  harrow ;  "  "  midst  huge  clods  he  plunges  on  for- 
lorn." He  breaks  the  frozen  turnip  with  a  heavy  beetle.  The 
seed  is  sown  broad-cast.  Arthur  Young  laments  that,  "  if  a  per- 
son, the  least  skilled  in  agriculture,  looks  around  for  instruments 
that  deserve  to  be  called  complete,  how  few  will  he  meet  with."§ 
At  Lawford,  near  Ma'nningtree,  he  rejoices  to  have  found  "  a  most 
ingenious  smith,"  who  has  made  a  new  iron  swing-plough,  a  horse- 
rake  on  wheels,  and  a  hand-mill  for  grinding  wheat.  ||  Out  of  the 
persevering  ingenuity  of  such  m£n  have  proceeded  the  manifold 
instruments  of  modern  agriculture — the  lighter  ploughs  ;  the  "  cul- 
tivators," that  save  ploughing ;  the  clod-crushers  and  scarifiers ; 
the  drills  ;  the  horse-hoes  ;  the  threshing  and  winnowing  machines  ; 
the  turnip-cutters  and  chaff-cutters  ;  the  draining  ploughs  and  drain- 
tile  machines.  The  application  of  machinery  and  chemical  science 
to  the  production  of  food  has  produced  results  as  important  as 
in  any  other  branch  of  manufacture,  under  which  term  we  must 
now  include  the  modern  achievements  of  the  spirited  farmer. 

*  Forby's  "  Vocabulary  of  East  Anglia,"  vol.  ii.  p.  423.  t  "  Worthies." 

t  Gay.  f  "  Eastern  Tour,"  vol.  ii.  p.  498.  Ii  Ibid  p.  212. 


BUCKINGHAMSHIRE.  -jor 

The  limited  economical  observation  of  the  author  of  "  The 
Farmer's  Boy,"  suggested  a  lament  that  "  London  market,  London 
price,"  influenced  the  production  of  his  county  ;  that  "  dairy  pro- 
duce throngs  the  eastern  road ;  "  that  along  that  highway  were 
travelling 

"  Delicious  veal  and  butter,  every  hour, 
From  Essex  lowlands  and  the  banks  of  Stour  ; 
And  further  far,  where  numerous  herds  repose, 
From  Orwell's  brink,  from  Waveney  or  Ouse." 

Thirty  years  later,  William  Cobbett,  who  from  his  farm  at  Botley 
sent  the  earliest  lambs  to  the  London  mark'et,  expressed  his  rabid 
indignation  that  the  fat  oxen  of  Wilts  were  "destined  to  be  de- 
voured in  the  Wen  " — his  favourite  name  for  the  metropolis.*  The 
demagogue  knew  full  well  that  the  demand  of  the  markets  of  Lon- 
don, and  of  other  great  cities,  gave  the  natural  impulse  to  the  pro- 
ductiveness of  the  country ;  and  that  the  greater  part  of  "  the 
primest  of  human  food  "  was  not  there  devoured  by  "  tax-eaters 
and  their  base  and  prostituted  followers."  The  profits  derived  in 
the  olden  time  from  Essex  calves  furnished  the  capital  whose  grad- 
ual increase  gave  Essex  land-owners  and  farmers  the  means  of 
draining  their  marshes,  and  of  rescuing  land  from  the  sea.  "  It 
argueth  the  goodness  of  flesh  in  this  country,  and  that  great  gain 
was  got  formerly  by  the  sale  thereof,  because  that  so  many  stately 
monuments  were  erected  anciently  therein  for  butchers — inscribed 
carnifices  in  their  epitaphs."!  Essex  veal  preserves  its  reputation, 
and  so  Essex  oysters.  Essex  saffron  is  a  thing  of  the  past,  though 
its  former  celebrity  lingers  in  the  name  of  Saffron  Walden.  The 
use  of  saffron  as  a  condiment  in  fool  has  long  been  at  an  end ;  its 
value  as  a  medicine  is  very  equivocal.  We  now  import  the  small 
quantity  of  saffron  that  we  consume.  The  husbandry  books  of  a 
century  ago  contain  the  most  elaborate  directions  for  its  cultivation 
upon  a  large  scale.  Coriander,  and  carroway,  and  canary  are  ex- 
tensively grown  in  the  clay  district  of  Essex  ;  %  but  the  good  roads, 
the  coast  navigation,  and  the  vicinity  to  London  give  this  county 
the  full  power  to  maintain  its  old  superiority  in  producing  the  great 
staples  of  human  food. 

Several  of  the  South-Midland  counties  have  their  records  and 
traditional  traces  of  old  modes  of  husbandry,  and  of  their  accom- 
panying manners,  which  strikingly  contrast  with  the  course  of 
modern  improvement. 

Buckinghamshire  had  an  ancient  reputation  for  fertility.     "  A 

*  «  Rural  Rides,"  1830,  p.  534-  t  Fuller's  "  Worthies." 

t  "Journal  of  Royal  Agricultural  Society,"  vol.  v-  p.  39- 

VOL.  VI.— 20 


306  HISTORY  OF   ENGLAND. 

fruitful  country,  especially  in  the  Vale  of  Aylesbury,"  says  Fuller. 
Arthur  Young  journeyed  through  this  famous  Vale  a  hundred  and 
ten  years  after  Fuller  wrote,  and  found  the  husbandry  almost  as 
bad  'as  the  land  is  good.  The  wheat  crops  only  yielded  fifteen 
bushels  per  acre  ;  the  barley  crops  sixteen  bushels.  The  poverty 
of  the  crops  is  chiefly  imputed  to  the  want  of  draining.  Young 
expresses  his  surprise  that  the  landlords  have  made  no  attempt  at 
inclosing.  "  All  this  Vale  would  make  as  fine  meadows  as  any  in 
the  world."  *  It  was  very  long  before  this  county  discovered  that 
open  fields,  and  large  Tracts  of  waste  capable  of  cultivation,  pre- 
sented effectual  barriers  to  improvement. f  Nevertheless,  many 
of  the  wastes  of  the  Chilterns  could  not  be  profitably  cultivated. 
But  the  long  ranges  of  hills  covered  with  beech — such  as  were  the 
indigenous  growth  of  the  chalk  in  the  earliest  times — are  pictur- 
esque to  ride  beneath,  recalling  the  memory  of  Hampden  and  the 
stout  yeomen  who  chose  to  fight  rather  than  be  taxed  out  of  their 
liberty.  Buckinghamshire  is  finding  uses  for  the  beech,  in  manu- 
facturing cheap  chairs,  at  the  rate  of  a  thousand  a  day,  at  High 
Wycombe  and  the  neighbourhood.  She  is  using  up  her  resources, 
and  getting  rid  of  her  nuisances  ; — administering  the  relief  of  the 
poor  so  as  not  to  drive  land  out  of  cultivation  ;  and  extirpating 
the  game,  instead  of  having  a  fertile  country  little  better  than  a 
large  preserve,  especially  as  it  was  once  in  one  ducal  domain.  + 
The  country  has  discovered  that  large  dairy-farms  are  better  than 
wheat  crops  of  fifteen  bushels  per  acre.  Butter  is  now  produced 
here  as  a  great  manufacture.  It  is  held  that  there  are  120,000 
acres  in  Buckinghamshire  devoted  to  dairying,  on  which,  with  the 
aid  of  some  arable  land,  30,000,  cows  are  kept,  producing  annually 
the  almost  incredibly  amount  of  6,000,000  Ibs.  of  butter,  chiefly 
sent  to  the  London  market  by  railway.  It  was  stated  before  the 
Aylesbury  Railway  Committee  that  800,000  ducks  reared  in  the 
county,  for  the  early  supply  of  the  all-devouring  metropolis — a 
possible  exaggeration.  Butter  and  ducks  will  never  want  a  ready 
market  and  command  a  fair  price.  The  old  Buckinghamshire  trade 
of  pillow-lace  making — the  "  bone-lace  "  of  former  times — leaves 
"  the  free  maids  "  to  the  miserable  pittance  of  sixpence  for  a  day's 
labour. 

Oxfordshire  cultivation  was,  a  century  ago,  somewhat  below 
the  average  of  the  inland  counties.  Its  progress  has  not  been  very 
remarkable.  The  chief  bar  to  improvement  was  the  existence  of 
large  tracts  as  common  field.  There  were  few  wastes.  The  cul- 

*  "  Eastern  Tour,"  vol.  i.  p.  23. 

t  "  Journal  of  Agricultural  Society,"  vol.  xvi.  p.  406.  J  Ibid.,  p.  315, 


OXFORDSHIRE — NORTHAMPTONSHIRE.  307 

ture  of  green  crops  and  root  crops  has  gone  on,  through  not  very 
rapidly.  The  farm  buildings  are  generally  old  and  inconvenient ; 
the  implements  are  of  old  fashion  ;  the  occupation  roads  are 
execrable.  The  large  farmers  are  described  as  intelligent  and  in- 
dustrious ;  but  not  so  spirited  or  progressive  as  the  tenantry  of 
some  other  counties.  The  lesser  yeomen  too  often  "  crawl  on  in 
the  same  track  their  ancestors  jogged  over  a  century  ago."  They 
have  inherited  the  prejudices  of  former  times,  with  their  sterling 
qualities  of  industry  and  hospitality.* 

Fuller  exults  that  his  native  county  of  Northampton  has  "  as 
little  waste  ground  as  any  county  in  England — no  mosses,  meres, 
fells,  heaths."  It  was  a  county  full  of  "  spires  and  squires  " — a 
grass  country,  where  fox-hunting  was  carried  to  perfection  by  its 
resident  gentry,  and  its  graziers  grew  rich  without  much  pains  of 
cultivation.  Arthur  Young  grows  almost  poetical  in  his  contem- 
plation of  the  large  grazing  farms.  "  The  quantity  of  great  oxen 
and  sheep  is  very  noble.  It  is  very  common  to  see  from  forty  to 
sixty  oxen  and  two  hundred  sheep  in  a  single  field,  and  the  beasts 
are  all-  of  a  fine  large  breed.  This  effect  is  owing  in  no  slight 
degree  to  the  nature  of  the  country,  which  is  wholly  composed  of 
gentle  hills,  so  that  you  look  over  many  hundred  acres  at  one 
stroke,  of  the  eye,  and  command  all  the  cattle  feeding  in  them,  in  a 
manner  nobly  picturesque."!  But  in  this  bright  picture  there  is  a 
dark  shade.  The  fine  grass  on  the  excellent  soil  is  over-run  with 
thistles,  and  is  full  of  ant-hills ;  none  of  its  wet  places  are  drained  ; 
one-eighth  of  the  whole  is  really  waste  land.  The  great  improver 
exhorts  the  Northamptonshire  farmers  to  get  rid  of  rushes,  ant- 
hills, thistles  (which  were  regularly  mown),  nettles,  "  and  all  the  et 
caeteras  of  slovenliness."^  The  arable  husbandry  was  little  better. 
The  light  land  was  considered  only  fit  to  grow  rye — soils  which 
now\yield  abundant  crops  of  wheat.  Common  fields,  with  all  their 
evils)  were  almost  universal.  Their  general  inclosure  has  made 
sopfe  local  terms  obsolete,  such  as  "  balk, — a  narrow  slip  of  grass 
dividing  two  ploughed  or  arable  lands  in  open  or  common  fields  ;  " 
and  "  meer, — a  strip  or  slip  of  grass  land,  which  served  as  a 
boundary  to  different  properties."  §  As  late  as  1806,  some  tracts 
continued  in  this  state  of  imperfect  cultivation.  In  a  Report  of 
that  year  on  the  farming  of  the  county,  a  celebrated  locality  is 
thus  described  :  "  From  Welford,  through  Naseby,  the  open  field 
extensive,  and  in  as  backward  a  state  as  it  could  be  in  Charles  the 

*  "  Journal  of  Royal  Agricultural  Society,"  vol.  xv. 

t  "  Eastern  Tour,"  vol.  i.  p.  54.  t  Ibid.,  p.  62. 

§  Baker,  "  Northamptonshire  Glossary." 


^oS  HISTORY   OF   ENGLAND. 

First's  time,  when  the  fatal  battle  was  fought."  Naseby  field,  ac- 
cording to  Young,  contained  six  thousand  acres.  The  miserable 
farm-buildings  of  the  days  when  "  the  master  "  always  sat  in  his 
"  long  settle  "  in  the  kitchen  (which  was  called  "  the  house  "),  have 
survived  in  many  places  to  our  days  ;  small  barns  and  stabling, 
ill-contrived  yards,  no  capacity  for  stall-feeding,  with  the  horse- 
pond  ready  to  receive  all  the  soluble  parts  of  the  manure.*  In 
some  grazing  districts  there  has  been  retrogression  instead  of  im- 
provement. The  land  has  been  let  in  large  quantities  to  non- 
resident occupiers,  who  have  pulled  down  the  cottages  and  farm 
premises,  and  only  set  up  a  few  cow-houses  or  shelter  hovels.  The 
sheep-shearing  festivities,  with  the  beechen  bowl  filled  with  furmety, 
are  at  an  end  ;  the  worsted-spinners  are  no  longer  to  be  found  in 
the  villages,  drinking  tea  twice  a  day,  which  custom  Young  much 
deplores.  The  farmer  still  hires  his  servants  at  the  "  stattie  " 
(statute  fair),  and  some  of  the  ancient  holidays  are  kept  up.  But 
the  old  general  intercourse  between  the  farmer  and  his  labourers 
has  been  too  much  destroyed  by  a  system  which  fears  to  provide 
sufficient  cottage  accommodation,  through  the  baneful  influence 
of  the  Law  of  Settlement.  The  repeal,  in  1775,  of  the  Act  of 
Elizabeth  against  building  cottages,  which  Act  the  legislators  of 
George  III.  truly  said  "  laid  the  industrious  poor  under  great  dif- 
ficulties to  procure  habitations,"  was  insufficient  to  remove  the  rate- 
payers' jealousy  of  parochial  burthens ;  and  that  jealousy  has 
produced  an  amount  of  misery  and  demoralization  which  cannot  be 
too  quickly  remedied. 

The  improvements  of  Bedfordshire  are  intimately  associated 
with  the  exertions  of  Francis,  duke  of  Bedford.  He  laboured  at 
Woburn  to  accomplish  results  similar  to  those  which  Mr.  Coke 
produced  at  Holkham.  Burke,  in  his  famous  "  Letter  to  a  Noble 
Lord,"  tells  the  duke  that  his  landed  possessions  "  are  more  exten- 
sive than  the  territory  of  many  of  the  Grecian  republics  ;  and  they 
are  without  comparison  more  fertile  than  most  of  them."  These 
possessions,  says  the  rhetorician,  are  irresistibly  inviting  to  an 
agrarian  experiment.  "  Hitherto  they  have  been  wholly  unproduc- 
tive to  speculation  ;  fitted  for  nothing  but  to  fatten  bullocks,  and  to 
produce  grain  for  beer."  The  sans-culotte  carcase-butchers  and  the 
philosophers  of  the  shambles/ are  regarding  his  Grace  as  they  would 
a  prize-ox  ;  "their  only  question  will  be  that  of  their  Legendre,  or 
some  other  of  their  legislative  butchers,  how  he  cuts  up  ?  how  he 
fattens  in  the  caul  or  on  the  kidneys  ?  "  These  bitter  sarcasms 
upon  the  duke  of  Bedford's  political  opinions  cannot  be  adequatelj 

*  "  Journal  of  Agricultural  Society,"  vol.  xiii.  p.  86. 


FRANCIS,    DUKE   OF   BEDFORD. 


309 


Understood  except  as  having  reference  to  his  enthusiastic  labours 
for  the  improvement  of  the  land,  and  of  the  stock  that  fed  upon  it. 
Burke  did  not  despise  such  pursuits.  He  was  himself  an  agricul- 
tural improver.  Young  saw  him  experimenting  on  carrots  at  his 
farm  at  Beaconsfield,  and  says, l<  Buckinghamshire  will  be  much  in- 
debted to  the  attention  this  manly  genius  gives  to  husbandry." 
What  the  great  commoner  was  doing  upon  a  small  scale,  the  no 
less  patriotic  nobleman  was  accomplishing  on  a  large  scale.  In  his 
early  time  two-thirds  of  Bedfordshire  were  in  common  field;  a 
third  of  the  arable  land  was  under  a  dead  fallow  every  year ;  the 
part  under  crop  was  wofully  damaged  by  water ;  the  meagre-looking- 
sheep  were  often  swept  off  in  entire  flocks  by  the  rot ;  the  neat 
cattle  were  no  distinct  breed  ;  the  farm-implements  were  of  the  rudest 
kind.  "  No  one  that  lived  in  or  near  the  times  of  the  duke  of  Bed- 
ford, can  be  ignorant  of  the  efforts  which  that  nobleman  put  forth 
to  arouse  the  torpor-stricken  agriculturists  of  his  day."  The  duke 
did  not,  like  his  friend  and  fellow-labourer,  Mr.  Coke,  live  to  see  the 
triumphs  of  improved  farming ;  by  which,  according  to  the  Report 
from  which  we  quote,*  "  there  are  scores  of  farms  now  producing 
50  per  cent,  more  corn  than  in  1794,  and  supplying  the  metropoli- 
tan markets  with  a  stone  of  meat  for  every  pound  supplied  at  the 
former  period." 

The  great  agricultural  reformers  who  succeeded  lord  Townshend, 
the  introducer  of  the  turnip-husbandry,  came  at  a  period  when 
Robert  Bakewell,  a  yeoman  of  Leicestershire,  held  levees  in  his 
kitchen  at  Dishley,  of  the  greatest  in  rank,  and  the  most  eminent 
in  science,  who  came  to  learn  his  new  art  of  producing  breeds  of 
sheep  and  oxen  that  would  fatten  the  most  readily,  and  be  the  most 
valuable  when  fat.  With  regard  to  oxen,  "  the  old  notion,"  says 
Young  "  was,  that  where  you  had  much  and  large  bones,  there  was 
plenty  of  room  to  lay  flesh  on ;  and  accordingly  the  graziers  were 
eager  to  buy  the  largest  horned  cattle."  Bakewell  maintained  that 
the  smaller  the  bones  the  truer  will  be  the  make  of  the  beast,  the 
I  fatteriing  quicker,  and  the  weight  would  give  a  larger  proportion  of 
valuable  meat.  The  proportion  of  value  to  the  cost  of  production 
Avaa^the  real  question.  He  applied  the  same  principle  to  sheep, — 
that  of  fattening  on  the  most  valuable  part  of  the  body.f  When 
Paley  was  told  that  Bakewell  could  lay  on  the  flesh  of  his  sheep 
wherever  he  chose,  the  blunt  divine  said  it  was  "a lie."  His  art  real- 
ly was  to  deduce,  from  a  series  of  observations  on  many  beasts,  a 

*  Mr.  Bennett  on  the  Fanning  of  Bedfordshire—"  Royal   Agricultural  Journal,"  YoL. 
xviii.  p.  26. 

t  Y  m  i.3i  "  East3rn  Tour,"  vol.  i.  pp.  no  to  134. 


310  HISTORY   OF    ENGLAND. 

knowledge  of  the  peculiar  make  in  which  they  all  agreed  in  fatten- 
ing readily,  or  the  contrary.*  BakewelFs  mode  of  management  was 
as  peculiar  as  his  wonderful  inductive  skill  in  accomplishing  the 
improvement  of  breeds.  He  made  all  his  cattle  docile.  He  trained 
bulls  to  be  as  gentle  as  horses  under  Rarey.  They  stood  still  in 
the  fields  to  be  examined.  "  A  lad,  with  a  stick  three  feet  long 
and  as  big  as  his  finger,  will  conduct  a  bull  away  from  other  bulls, 
and  his  cows  from  one  end  of  the  farm  to  the  other.  All  this 
gentleness  is  merely  the  effect  of  management ;  and  the  mischief, 
often  done  by  bulls  is  undoubtedly  owing  to  practices  very  contrary 
or  else  to  a  total  neglect."!  To  Robert  Bakewell,  independently 
of  his  merit  as  the  founder  of  the  famous  breed  of  Leicester  sheep, 
is  to  be  ascribed  the  great  impulse  which  raised  the  occupation  of 
the  grazier  into  an  art.  This  progress,  concurrent  with  the  turnip 
husbandry,  the  general  improvement  in  the  cultivation  of  arable 
land,  and  the  conversion  of  barren  sands  and  drowned  fens  into 
rich  corn-bearing  districts,  has  enabled  the  supply  of  an  improved 
quality  of  meat  constantly  to  keep  pace  with  the  increase  of  pop- 
ulation. The  population  has  trebled  since  the  days  when  the  Dish- 
ley  yeoman  gave  lectures  upon  stock,  to  peers  who  desired  to  learn, 
and  to  farmers  who  came  to  sneer,  as  he  smoked  his  pipe  in  his 
great  chimney  corner,  or  walked  over  his  fields  in  his  brown  coat, 
red  waistcoat,  leather  breeches,  and  top-boots.  The  average  weight 
of  the  ox  and  the  sheep  has  been  doubled  since  the  beginning  of 
the  eighteenth  century.  The  number  produced  has  increased  in  a 
greater  ratio.  In  1732  there  were  seventy-six  thousand  cattle,  and 
five  hundred  thousand  sheep  sold  at  Smithfield  ;  in  1770  eighty-six 
thousand  cattle,  and  six  hundred  and  fifty  thousand  sheep  ;  in  1859, 
two  hundred  and  sixty  thousand  cattle,  and  a  million  and  a  half  of 
sheep. 

The  consumption  of  animal  food  in  England  has  always  been  a 
matter  of  surprise  to  foreigners.  An  intelligent  Frenchman,  M. 
Grosley,  who  came  to  this  country  in  1 765,  speaks  of  the  large  ex- 
port of  grain,  under  the  bounty-system,  as  exciting  his  astonish- 
ment, being  compared  with  the  extent  of  cultivation.  "In  the 
counties  of  England  through  which  I  travelled,  upon  my  way  either 
to  London,  Oxford,  or  Portsmouth,  I  saw  scarce  anything  but 
commons,  meadows,  large  parks,  wilds,  heaths,  and  very  little  ara- 
ble land."  He  considers  the  land  leased  by  rich  farmers  to  be 
well  cultivated.  "  Nevertheless,"  he  continues,  "  it  is  not  so  much 
the  harvests,  as  the  small  consumption  of  corn  by  the  English, 

*  Whateley— See  "  Quarterly  Review,"  vol.  ciii.  p.  396. 
t  "  Eastern  Tour,"  vol.  i.  p.  113. 


CONSUMPTION   OF   ANIMAL   FOOD  IN    ENGLAND.  3ll 

which  enables  them  to  export  a  great  quantity  of  corn.  In  fact, 
six  or  seven  ounces  of  bread  are  sufficient  for  the  daily  subsistence' 
of  an  Englishman ;  and  that  even  among  the  lower  sort.  They 
properly  speaking,  live  chiefly  upon  animal  food."  *  M.  Grosley 
saw  the  Londoners  eating  two  or  three  thin  slices  of  bread  and 
butter  with  their  tea  at  breakfast ;  and  he  says  of  their  bread-eating 
capacity,  "  what  would  be  scarce  enough  for  a  Frenchman  of  an 
ordinary  appetite  would  suffice  three  hungry  Englishmen."!  He 
had  not  seen  the  labourers  of  the  South  eating  their  rye-bread 
with  their  hard  cheese,  and  rarely  tasting  animal  food  ;  nor  those 
of  the  North,  satisfied  with  their  oat-meal  feast  of  crowdie  or  par- 
ritch.  It  was  estimated,  upon  the  most  careful  inquiry,  at  the  be- 
ginning of  the  reign  of  George  III.,  that  not  more  than  one  half  of 
the  people  were  fed  on  wheaten  bread ;  J  and  therefore  the  ordi- 
nary consumption  of  the  fine  bread  of  London  would  supply  no  cri- 
terion of  the  general  use  of  coarser  bread  in  the  country  districts. 
Rye  bread,  barley  bread,  and  oat-cake,  supplied  the  usual  food  of 
the  rural  population.  Notwithstading  this  limitation  of  the  con- 
sumption of  wheat,  the  increasing  numbers  of  the  people  could  not 
have  been  adequately  fed  without  an  extension  of  the  area  of  cul- 
tivation. Even  after  the  American  war,  the  quantity  of  uncultiva- 
ted land,  and  the  indifferent  husbandry,  were  manifest  to  the  for- 
eigner who  could  see  and  compare.  Jefferson  came  here  in  1786, 
and  he  thus  writes  from  France  to  a  friend  in  America :  "  I  re- 
turned here  but  three  or  four  days  ago,  after  a  two  months'  trip  to 
England.  I  traversed  that  country  much ;  and  own,  both  town 
and  country  fell  short  of  my  expectations.  Comparing  it  with  this, 
I  found  a  much  greater  proportion  of  barrens  ;  a  soil  in  other  parts 
not  naturally  so  good  as  this;  not  better  cultivated,  but  better 
manured,  and  therefore  more  productive.  "  § 

There  can  be  no  more  interesting  feature  in  the  progress  of  our 
country  than  that  of  the  conversion  of  its  "  barrens  "  into  fertile 
fields.  The  steady  as  well  as  rapid  course  of  this  great  change  is 
strikingly  illustrated  in  the  agricultural  county  of  Cambridge.  It 
contains  about  536,000  acres  of  land.  In  1794,  112,  500  acres  were 
fens,  cbmmons,  and  sheep-walks.  In  1806,  63,000  of  these  wastes 
had  been  inclosed  and  cultivated.  In  1846  only  10,000  of  these 
"""barrens  "  remained  uninclosed,  and  of  these,  5000  were  mown 
and  fed  in  the  summer. ||  The  Isle  of  Ely,  the  fen  district,  is  that 

*  "  Tour  to  London,"  translated  by  Nugent,  vol.  i.  p.  139-  t  H>"i-t  P-  69- 

t  Eden's  "  State  of  the  Poor,"  vol.  i.  p.  562. 

§  Tucker,   "  Life  of  Jefferson,"  vol.  i.  p.  225. 

U  "  Journal  of  Royal  Agricultural  Society,"  vol.  vii.  p.  JJ. 


3I2  HISTORY  OF   ENGLAND. 

which  offers  the  most  remarkable  example  of  improvement.  The 
subject  of  the  fen  cultivation  of  Cambridgeshire  may  be  treated  in 
common  with  that  of  the  neighbouring  county  of  Lincoln. 

Since  Richard  de  Rulos,  eight  hundred  years  ago, — being  "a 
person  much  devoted  to  agricultural  pursuits,  and  who  took  great 
delight  in  the  multitude  of  his  cattle  and  sheep  " — embanked  the 
river  Welland,  and  "  out  of  sloughs  and  bogs  accursed  formed  quite 
a  pleasure  garden,"  *  there  have  been  many  generations  of  im- 
provers, labouring  in  the  Great  Level  of  the  Fens,  with  the  same 
laudable  objects  They  have  succeeded,  as  all  persevering  work 
will  succeed,  in  spite  of  opposing  obstacles,  whether  of  the  forces 
of  nature  or  the  prejudices  of  man.  This  great  morass  extended 
from  Cambridge  to  Lincoln  ;  and  was  inhabited  in  the  time  of 
Elizabeth  by  men  who  walked  upon  stilts,  fishing  and  fowling,  and 
keeping  a  little  stock  upon  the  hay  which  they  secured  out  of  the 
fat  grass  when  the  streams  had  retired  under  the  summer  drought. 
In  the  reign  of  Elizabeth,  and  in  that  of  James  I.,  several  attempts 
were  made  to  bring  a  part  of  this  district  under  cultivation.  In 
1630  the  undertaking  was  vigorously  set  about  by  Francis  earl  of 
Bedford  ;  and  a  company  of  adventurers  was  formed  who  undertook 
to  drain  the  land,  having  ninety-five  thousand  acres  for  their  rec- 
ompense. The  men  who  walked  upon  stilts  were  indignant  at 
these  innovations,  which  threatened  to  exterminate  the  wild  ducks 
which  they  cherished  as  more  profitable  than  sheep  or  oxen  ;  and 
they  destroyed  the  drainage  works,  in  a  true  conservative  spirit. 
The  district  upon  which  these  incorporated  adventurers  worked  was 
called  the  Bedford  Level,  in  honour  of  the  nobleman  who  was  the 
great  encourager  of  the  undertaking.  They  engaged  Cornelius 
Vermuyden,  a  Dutch  engineer,  as  the  director  of  the  works.  They 
embanked  the  Welland  river,  the  Nene  river,  and  the  Ouse.  They 
made  deep  cuts,  of  sufficient  length  to  obtain  the  name  of  rivers. 
The  Lincolnshire  fens  were  undertaken  to  be  drained  by  other 
companies,  about  the  same  period.  Various  local  Acts  were  passed, 
and  the  work  went  on,  more  or  less  prosperously.  But  the  waters 
sometimes  broke  down  the  embankments,  and  scientific  engineer- 
ing, with  all  the  powers  of  the  giant  steam,  was  not  applied  till 
very  recent  times.  Mr.  Pusey  considers  that  "  though  the  body 
of  stagnant  water  was  greatly  reduced,  still  it  was  not  subdued,  so 
that  the  fen  land  was  worth  little,  even  when  George  III.  came  to 
the  throne.  "  f  In  1800  it  was  stated  that  more  than  300,000  acres 
in  Lincolnshire  suffered,  on  an  average,  a  loss  of  3OO,ooo/.  a  year  for 
want  of  an  efficient  drainage.  Mr.  Rennie  looked  upon  the  wide 

*Ante,  vol.  i.  p.  225.          t  "  Journal  of  Royal  Agricultural  Society,"  vol.  iv.  p. 


LINCOLN   HEATH   AND   THE   WOLDS.  313 

waste  with  the  comprehensive  glance  of  science,  and  saw  that  the 
outfall  to  the  sea  was  not  sufficient  to  cnrry  off  both  the  waters  of 
the  rising  slope  which  surrounded  the  whole  margin  of  the  Fen.  He 
made  a  separate  channel  to  carry  off  the  upland  waters.  The  great 
invention  of  Watt  pumped  out  the  water  into  the  artificial  rivers, 
instead  of  the  feeble  wind-mills  that  did  the  work  imperfectly  in 
the  eighteenth  century,  a  plan  first  introduced  in  the  reign  of 
George  I.  The  whole  land  has  been  made  dry.  Districts  grow- 
ing nothing  but  osiers,  three  feet  deep  in  water,  and  reeds  filled 
with  water-fowls  ;  watery  deserts  of  sedge  and  rushes,  inhabited 
by  frogs  and  bitterns— these  now  bear  splendid  crops  of  corn. 
Sheep  are  no  longer  carried  to  islets  of  rank  pasture  in  flat-bottom- 
ed boats ;  cows  are  no  longer  turned  out  of  their  hovels,  to  forage 
for  a  morsel  of  food,  swimming  rivers  and  wading  up  to  their  mid- 
dles. The  cattle  were  as  wretched  as  the  wild  inhabitants  of  the 
isolated  huts  to  whom  they  belonged.*  "  Since  the  drainage  of 
the  Fens  numerous  villages  have  sprung  up  where  previously  was 
nothing  but  a  watery  waste,  without  house  or  inhabitant,  and 
several  of  the  bordering  towns  have  doubled  their  population."  f 
The  effect  of  these  vast  changes  upon  the  health  of  the  people  of 
this  district,  seventy  miles  in  length,  and  from  twenty  to  forty 
miles  in  breadth,  is  no  less  important  than  the  additions  they  have 
made  to  the  productive  power  of  the  country. 

The  fens  of  Lincolnshire  are  not  the  only  portions  of  that  great 
county  which  have  been  reclaimed  from  barrenness  to  fertility. 
On  a  sunny  November  morning  of  1842,  Mr.  Pusey,  having 
journeyed  through  a  high  level  tract  from  Sleaford  towards  Lincoln, 
stood  under  a  tall  column  by  the  road  side,  about  four  miles  from 
Lincoln,  on  which  it  is  recorded  that  it  was  erected  for  the  public 
utility  in  the  year  1751.  That  column,  says  the  great  agricultural 
reformer,  "  was  a  land  lighthouse,"  built  "  as  a  nightly  guide  for 
travellers  over  the  dreary  waste  which  still  retains  the  name  of 
Lincoln  Heath,  but  is  now  converted  into  a  pattern  of  farming." 
The  district  over  which  he  had  passed  was  "  a  cultivated  exuber- 
ance-^uch  as  he  had  never  seen  before.  Thousands  after  thou- 
sands omong-woolled  sheep  were  feeding  in  netted  folds  upon  the 
\most  luxuriant  turnips.  Every  neatly  built  farm-house,  with  its 
spacious  courts,  was  surrounded  with  abundant  ricks.  And  yet  the 
farms  were  not  large  ;  the  land  showed  no  marks  of  natural  fertil- 
ity. Most  justly  does  Mr.  Pusey  say,  "  This  Dunston  pillar,  lighted 
no  longer  time  back  for  so  singular  a  purpose,  did  appear  to  me  a 
striking  witness  of  the  spirit  and  industry  which  in  our  own  days 

*  "  Journal  of  Royal  Agricultural  Society,"  vol.  xii.  p.  306.  t  /*«*••  P-  259- 


314  HISTORY   OF   ENGLAND. 

have  reared  the  thriving  homesteads  around  it,  and  spread  a  man- 
tle of  teeming  vegetation  to  its  very  base."  Beyond  Dunston  pil- 
lar, he  continued  to  see  the  same  "  beautiful  farms  "  till  he  reached 
Lincoln.  Passing  through  the  Roman  arch,  he  travelled  by  the 
old  Ermine  street  for  twenty  miles,  along  North  Lincoln  Heath, 
where  similar  neat  inclosures,  heavy  turnip  crops,  numerous  flocks, 
spacious  farm-buildings,  and  crowded  corn-ricks,  met  his  gaze. 
Through  the  whole  day  he  saw  to  the  right  a  long  range  of  hills 
running  parallel  to  the  Heath,  from  south  to  north.  These  were 
the  Wolds  of  Lincolnshire,  where  the  same  high  farming  prevailed. 
"  This  vast  tract  of  hill  land  had  been  redeemed,  like  the  Heath, 
from  nearly  equal  desolation  within  living  memory."  About  1760, 
Arthur  Young  saw  this  great  district  of  the  Wolds,  and  writes,  "it 
was  all  warren  for  thirty  miles,  from  Spilsby  to  Caistor."  In  1799 
he  beholds  great  improvement.  "  By  means  of  turnips  and  seeds 
there  are  now  at  least  twenty  sheep  kept  to  one  there  before."  But 
there  were  then  still  many  miles  of  waste  on  the  same  range  of 
hills ;  and  the  farmers  said  the  land  was  "  good  for  nothing  but 
rabbits."  This  district,  nearly  as  large  as  the  county  of  Bedford, 
has  now  been  added  to  the  corn-land  of  England.* 

In  the  county  of  Nottingham,  Arthur  Young  saw  little  to  admire. 
The  quantity  of  good  land  which  was  in  an  improved  state  of  cul- 
ture was  small,  in  comparison  of  the  lands  which  were  almost  un- 
cultivated. These  light  soils  were  called  "  forest  land,"  being  part 
of  the  vast  tract  of  the  old  forest  of  Sherwood,  f  In  1794,  when  a 
Report  of  the  Agriculture  of  this  county  was  published,  the  greater 
portion  was  still  a  sandy  waste,  divested,  for  the  most  part,  of  its 
ancient  oaks,  and  no  longer  affording  covert  to  the  stag  and  the 
roe — no  longer  the  hunting  ground  which  would  suggest  memories 
of  Robin  Hood  and  his  merry  men.  In  the  time  of  Camden,  the 
woods  were  much  thinner  than  of  old.  Few  uncleared  spots  now 
remain.  But  half  a  century  ago  Sherwood  Forest  presented  noth- 
ing but  desolation.  "  As  the  forest  was  cleared  of  its  stately  trees 
it  was  left  one  wide  waste,  so  naturally  sterile,  as  scarcely  to  have 
the  power  of  clothing  itself  with  the  scantiest  vegetation  ;  even  in 
the  present  day  some  districts  remain  which  bear  testimony  to  its 
former  sterility."  But  art  has  triumphed  over  nature.  Where  only 
rabbits  once  browsed,  large  flocks  of  sheep  are  now  fed.  Thegorse 
and  the  fern  have  been  driven  out  by  the  turnip  and  the  alternate 
wheat  crops.  The  introduction  of  the  Swede  turnip  has  mainly 

*  See  Mr.  Pusey's  most  interesting  paper  in  "Journal  of  Royal  Agricultural  Society," 
rol.  iv.  p.  287. 

t  "  Eastern  Tour,"  vol.  i.  p.  427. 


GEORGE  FREDERICK,  THE  PRINCE-REGENT.  —  Vol.  vi.  314 


SURREY. — MIDDLESEX. — KENT.  3Ie 

produced  the  improved  farming  of  Nottinghamshire.  At  the  ex- 
treme northern  part  of  the  county,  six  thousand  acres  of  bog-land, 
called  "  The  Cars,"  were  attempted  to  be  reclaimed  about  the  be- 
ginning of  the  century.  The  success  of  the  effort  was  very  imper- 
fect. The  difficulty  of  drainage  threatened  again  to  throw  the 
morass  out  of  cultivation.  The  steam-engine  at  last  effected  what 
drains  without  its  aid  could  not  accomplish.* 

The  agriculture  of  Derbyshire  has  derived  its  great  impulse 
from  the  progress  of  the  cotton  manufacture.  The  first  cotton- 
mill  was  established  upon  the  Derwent,  at  Cromford,  near  Matlock, 
by  Arkwright.  The  streams  of  this  beautiful  county  were  soon 
employed  in  driving  the  spindles  of  the  spinning  frame.  Large 
factories  were  established  in  rural  districts.  The  new  population 
gave  a  stimulus  to  the  industry  of  the  cultivator.  "  Agriculture 
and  manufactures  joined  hands."  f 

Our  glance  at  the  rural  economy  of  the  South-Eastern  Counties 
must  be  very  rapid.  Surrey  has  made  no  remarkable  strides  in 
improvement.  Its  "  barrens  "  are  probably  now  more  extensive 
than  in  any  other  county  of  southern  England.  The  mutton  of 
Banstead  Downs  used  to  be  famous ;  but  a  great  landowner  of  that 
district  says  that  this  Common,  as  well  as  Walton  Heath,  not  now 
worth  3</.  or  $d.  an  acre,  would  be  worth  14^.  an  acre  if  inclosed.J 
We  should,  perhaps  somewhat  selfishly,  grudge  this  gain ;  for 
round  a  metropolis  of  three  millions  of  people  we  want  the  old 
wide  breathing-spaces.  Middlesex  is  described  in  the  Agricultural 
Survey  of  1798,  as  abounding  in  Commons,  the  constant  rendez- 
vous of  gipsies  and  strollers,  and  the  resort  of  footpads  and  high- 
waymen. Finchley  Common  and  Hounslow  Heath  were,  at  the 
end  of  the  last  century,  the  terror  of  all  travellers.  Gibbets,  by  the 
way-side,  told  their  horrible  tale  of  the  absence  of  prevention  and 
the  ineffectiveness  of  punishment.  The  grass  farms  to  the  north 
of  London  were  the  admiration  of  Arthur  Young  in  1770.  Enfield 
Chase,  a  vast  useless  tract  of  fine  land,  he  regarded  as  a  nuisance. 
East  Kent,  and  the  Isle  of  Thanet,  have  the  admiration  of  this 
excellent  judge  :  "  This  tract  of  country  has  long  been  reckoned 
the  best  cultivated  in  England,  and  it  has  no  slight  pretensions  to 
that  character.  Their  drill-husbandry  is  most  peculiar ;  it  must 
astonish  strangers  to  find  such  numbers  of  common  farmers,  that 
/have  m^re  drilled  crops  than  broad-cast  ones,  and  to  see  them  so 

^~*  "  Journal  of  Royal  Agricultural  Society,"  vol.  ri.  t  ttid.,  vol.  xiv. 

t  Hid.,  vol.  iv.  p.  307. 


316  HISTORY  OF    ENGLAND. 

familiar  with  drill-ploughs  and  horse-hoes."  *  Gray,  in  1766,  was 
surprised  at  the  beauty  of  the  road  to  Canterbury.  "  The  whole 
country  is  a  rich  and  well  cultivated  garden ;  orchards,  cherry 
grounds,  hop  grounds,  intermixed  with  corn  and  frequent  vil- 
lages." f  Arthur  Young  enters  Sussex  in  a  pleasant  mood.  The 
roads  from  Rye  to  Hawkhurst  were  good ;  the  villages  numerous, 
with  neat  cottages  and  well-kept  gardens.  He  speaks  as  if  such  a 
sight  were  rare  :  "  One's  humanity  is  touched  with  pleasure  to  see 
cottages  the  residence  of  cheerfulness  and  content."  J  The  iron 
furnaces  of  wooded  Sussex  were  not  then  superseded  by  the  coal 
of  the  midland  districts.  The  Downs  then  carried  that  breed  of 
sheep  whose  value  has  never  been  impaired.  The  Isle  of  Wight 
did  not  disappoint  his  expectation  of  finding  "  much  entertainment 
in  excellent  husbandry."  Of  the  New  Forest,  that  vast  tract  which 
has  so  long  been  suffered  to  run  to  waste,  under  the  pretence  of 
furnishing  a  supply  of  oak  for  the  navy,  Arthur  Young  said,  what 
many  have  since  repeated,  "  there  is  not  a  shadow  of  a  reason  for 
leaving  it  in  its  present  melancholy  state."  Much  of  the  pictur- 
esqueness  which  Gilpin  described  is  gone.  The  hundreds  of  hogs, 
under  the  care  of  one  swineherd,  led  out  to  feed  on  the  beech-mast 
during  the  "  pawnage  month  "  of  October,  no  longer  excite  the 
wonder  of  the  pedestrian.  Some  of  the  old  romance  of  Hampshire 
has  also  vanished.  The  deer-stealers  of  the  time  of  George  I., 
known  as  the  Waltham  Blacks, — for  whose  prevention  a  special 
statute  was  made,  § — were  not  quite  extinct  in  the  days  of  Gilbert 
White.  They  are  gone,  with  the  Wolmer  Forest  and  Waltham 
Chase  that  tempted  their  depredations. 

In  Berkshire  the  king  was  setting  a  good  example  to  the  agri- 
cultural portion  of  his  subjects,  and  earning  the  honourable  name  of 
"Farmer  George."  In  the  Great  Park  of  Windsor  he  had  his 
"  Flemish  Farm,"  and  his  "  Norfolk  Farm."  He  was  a  contributor 
to  Young's  "Annals  of  Agriculture,"  under  the  signature  of 
"  Ralph  Robinson."  Meanwhile  the  Forest  of  Windsor  exhibited 
one  of  the  many  examples  of  a  vast  tract  wholly  neglected  or  im- 
perfectly cultivated.  It  comprised  a  circuit  of  fifty-six  miles, 
containing  twenty-four  thousand  acres  of  uninclosed  land.  It  was 
not  till  1813  that  an  Act  of  Parliament  was  passed  for  its  inclosure. 
Much  of  this  district  was  that  desolate  tract  of  sand,  known  as 
Bagshot  Heath  and  Easthampstead  Plain  ;  but  very  large  portions, 
where  only  fern  and  thistles  grew,  were  capable  of  cultivation. 

*  "  Eastern  Tour,"  vol.  iii.  p.  108.  t  Letter  to  Wharton. 

$  "  Eastern  Tour,"  vol.  iii.  p.  125.  §  21  Geo.  I. 


WINDSOR    FOREST. 


317 


Much  has  been  turned  into  arable  ;  more  has  been  devoted  to  the 
growth  of  timber,  under  the  direction  of  the  Office  of  Woods  and 
Forests.  Vast  plantations  have  been  formed  of  oak  and  fir ;  plains, 
where  a  large  army  might  have  manoeuvred  fifty  years  ago,  are 
covered  with  hundreds  of  thousands  of  vigorous  saplings  ;  heaths, 
where  a  few  straggling  hawthorns  used  to  be  the  landmarks  of  the 
traveller,  are  now  one  sea  of  pine.  The  farms,  scattered  about  the 
seventeen  parishes  of  the  Forest,  were  small.  The  cultivation  was 
of  a  very  unscientific  character.  The  manners  of  the  farmers  and 
their  in-door  laborers  were  as  primitive  as  their  turf  fires.  This 
obsolete  homeliness  is  a^  rare  now  as  the  thymy  fragrance  of  the 
thin  smoke  that  curled  out  of  the  forest  chimneys.  The  large 
kitchen,  where  the  master  and  mistress  dwelt  in  simple  companion- 
ship with  their  men  and  their  maidens  ;  the  great  oaken-table  which 
groaned  with  the  plentiful  Sunday  dinner — the  one  dinner  of  fresh 
meat  during  the  week  :  the  huge  basins  of  milk  and  brown  bread 
for  the  ploughman  and  the  carter  and  the  plough-boy  before 
they  went  a-field ;  the  cricket  after  work  in  summer,  and  the 
song  a_nd  chorus  in  the  common  room  as  the  day  grew  short — 
these  are  pleasant  to  remember  amidst  the  other  changed  things 
of  a  past  generation.  "  The  scenes  which  live  in  my  recollection 
can  never  come  back ;  nor  is  it  fitting  that  they  should.  With  the 
primitive  simplicity  there  was  also  a  good  deal  of  primitive  waste 
and  carelessness.  Except  in  the  dairy,  dirt  and  litter  were  the 
accompaniments  of  the  rude  housekeeping.  The  fields  were  imper- 
fectly cultivated ;  the  headlands  were  full  of  weeds.  I  have  no 
doubt  that  all  is  changed,  or  the  farm  would  be  no  longer  a  farm.''  * 

*  «  Once  upon  a  Time,"  by  Charles  Knight. 


318  HISTORY  OF   ENGLAND 


CHAPTER  XVIII. 

Agricultural  condition  of  the  South  Western  Counties. — Wiltshire.— Dorsetshire. — Devon, 
shire. —  Somersetshire. —  Cornwall — Wales. — The  West  Midland  Counties. — The 
North  Midland.— Yorkshire. — Improvers  of  the  Moors. — James  Croft,  an  agricultural 
collier. —  Northern  Counties.  —Durham.—  Northumberland. —  Westmorland — The 
Lake  District. — Agricultural  condition  of  Scotland. — The  Lothians. — Sheep  flocks. — 
Ayrshire. — Burns. — Lanarkshire  and  Renfrewshire. — North-western  parts. — Agricul- 
tural condition  of  Ireland. — The  potato  cultivation. 

CONFINING,  for  the  present,  our  general  view  of  the  remaining 
moiety  of  England  to  its  pastoral  and  agricultural  condition  before 
the  end  of  the  eighteenth  century,  we  proceed  to  the.  South 
Western,  the  West  Midland,  the  North  Western,  and  the  North 
counties  ;  also  including  Wales.  Those  divisions  of  the  country 
contained  a  population  of  about  two  millions  and  a  half  at  the  end 
of  the  seventeenth  century ;  of  four  millions  and  a  half  at  the  end 
of  the  eighteenth  century  ;  and  of  ten  millions  and  a  half  at  the  end 
of  the  first  half  of  the  nineteenth  century.  Such  quadrupling  of 
the  population  in  the  course  of  a  hundred  and  fifty  years  is  an  evi- 
dence of  the  direction  of  productive  labour  to  manufacturing  and 
commercial  industry,  in  particular  districts  having  an  extraordinary 
command  of  raw  material.  We  have  indicated  the  partial  growth 
of  such  employments  in  the  reign  of  Anne  and  of  George  I.*  We 
shall  have  to  show  their  greater  expansion  in  the  first  half  of  the 
reign  of  George  III.  But  we  desire  first  to  exhibit,  during  the 
latter  period,  how  the  rapid  growth  &f  a  trading  population  was 
stimulating  the  employment  of  capital  in  the  rural  districts  ;  and 
above  all,  what  a  vast  field  existed  for  its  employment  in  the  direc- 
tion of  science  and  labour  to  the  neglected  tracts  and  imperfect 
cultivation  of  a  country  capable  of  a  wonderful  enlargement  of  its 
fertility.  In  this  rapid  sketch  we  shall  add  an  equally  brief  glance 
at  Scotland  and  Ireland. 

William  Cobbett,  who  had  an  intense  enjoyment  of  rural  life, 
and  a  power  of  expressing  his  pleasure  which  almost  rises  into 
poetry,  says  he  would  rather  live  and  farm  amongst  the  Wiltshire 
Downs,  "  than  on  the  binks  of  the  Wye  in  Herefordshire,  in  the 
vale  of  Gloucester,  of  Worcester,  or  of  Evesham,  or  even  in  what 

*  Ante,  vol.  iv.  chap.  xix.  and  xx. 


AGRICULTURAL   CONDITION   OF   WILTSHIRE.  319 

the  Kentish  men  call  their  garden  of  Eden."  He  looks  with  rap- 
ture upon  the  "  smooth  and  verdant  downs  in  hills  and  vallies  of 
endless  variety  as  to  height  and  depth  and  shape ; "  he  rejoices  in 
beholding,  as  he  rides  along  on  a  bright  October  morning,  the 
immense  flocks  of  sheep,  going  out  from  their  several  folds  to  the 
downs  for  the  day,  each  having  its  shepherd  and  each  shepherd  his 
clog.  He  saw  two  hundred  thousand  South-down  sheep  at  Wey- 
hill-fair,  brought  from  the  down-farms  of  Wiltshire  and  Hampshire.* 
But  upon  these  down-farms  he  was  surprised  to  see  very  large 
pieces  of  Swedish  and  white  turnips.  The  pastoral  district  was  then, 
some  thirty  years  ago,  becoming  agricultural.  At  the  present  time 
"  the  rapid  extension  of  tillage  over  these  high  plains  threatens  be- 
fore long  to  leave  but  little  of  their  original  sheep-walks."  f  When 
the  mallard  was  the  chief  tenant  of  the  fens,  and  the  bittern  of  the 
marshes,  large  flocks  of  great  bustards  ranged  over  the  Wiltshire 
downs,  running  with  exceeding  swiftness,  and  using  their  ostrich-like 
wings  to  accelerate  their  speed.  They  usually  fled  before  the  sports- 
man and  the  traveller  ;  but  they  have  been  known  to  resent  intru- 
sion upon  their  coverts  of  charlock  or  thistles,  attacking  even  a 
horseman.  Wesley,  in  his  "Account  of  John  Haine,"  one  of  his  enthu- 
siastic followers,  relates  what  was  supposed  to  be  a  supernatural 
appearance  to  reprove  the  poor  man  for  a  paroxysm  of  religious 
frenzy.  "  He  saw,  in  the  clear  sky,  a  creature  like  a  swan,  but  much 
larger,  part  black,  part  brown,  which  flew  at  him,  went  just  over 
his  head,  and  lighting  on  the  ground,  at  about  forty  yards'  distance, 
stood  staring  upon  him."  The  apparition  is  expTained  by  the 
author  of  the  "  Life  of  Wesley,"  to  have  been  a  bustard  ;  and  he 
quotes  a  relation  by  sir  Richard  Hoare,  of  two  instances,  in  1805, 
of  the  bustard  attacking  a  man  and  a  horse.  The  author  of  "  An- 
cient Wiltshire  "  says,  that  a  report  of  these  incidents  in  the 
Gentleman's  Magazine  of  1805,  "is  probably  the  last  record  we 
shall  find  of  the  existence  of  this  bird  upon  our  downs.  "  J  The 
bustard  has  now  utterly  disappeared.  He  stalks  no  longer  where 
the  furrow  has  been  drawn. 

Wiltshire  is  said  not  to  be  remarkable  in  our  time  for  a  very 
high  standard  of  farming.  Aubrey  says,  of  England  generally, 
lore  the  year  1649,  when  experimental  philosophy  was  first  cul- 
tivated by  a  club  at  Oxford,  that  it  was  thought  not  to  be  good 
manners  for  a  man  to  be  more  knowing  than  his  neighbours  and 
forefathers.  "Even  to  attempt  an  improvement  in  husbandry, 

*  "  Rural  Rides."  t  "  Quarterly  Review,"  vol.  ciii.  p.  135- 

t  Southey— "  Life  of  Wesley,"  vol.  ii.  p.   124  and  p.  igz. 


320 


HISTORY   OF   ENGLAND. 


though  it  succeeded  with  profit,  was  looked  upon  with  an  ill  eye."  * 
He  applies  this  character  more  particularly  to  Wiltshire.  "  I  will 
only  say  of  our  husbandmen,  as  sir  Thomas  Overbury  does  of  the 
Oxford  scholars,  that  they  go  after  the  fashion  ;  that  is,  when  the 
fashion  is  almost  out  they  take  it  up  :  so  our  countrymen  are  very 
late  and  very  unwilling  to  learn  or  to  be  brought  to  new  improve- 
ments." The  late  Mr.  Britton,  a  Wiltshire  man,  who  edited 
Aubrey's  "  Natural  History,"  and  wrote  a  memoir  of  him,  says,  "  In 
the  days  of  my  own  boyhood,  nearly  seventy  years  ago,  I  spent 
some  time  at  a  solitary  farmhouse  in  North  Wiltshire,  with  a  grand- 
father and  his  family,  and  can  remember  the  various  occupations 
and  practices  of  the  persons  employed  in  the  dairy,  and  on  the 
grazing  and  corn  lands.  I  never  saw  either  a  book  or  newspaper 
in  the  house  ;  nor  were  any  accounts  of  the  farming  kept.f 

Dorsetshire,  the  great  county  of  quarries  and  of  fossil  remains 
— of  the  Portland  stone  of  which  St.  Paul's  was  built,  and  of  the 
Purbeck  marble  whose  sculptured  columns  adorn  the  Temple 
Church  and  Salisbury  Cathedral — Dorsetshire  was  eighty  years 
ago  a  district  where  agricultural  improvements  had  made  little  pro- 
gress. Arthur  Young  describes  its  bleak  commons,  quite  waste, 
but  consisting  of  excellent  land;  its  downs,  where  sheep  were  fed 
without  turnip  culture ;  its  three  courses  of  corn-crop,  and  then 
long  seasons  of  weeds.  The  Dorsetshire  farmers,  he  replies,  held 
his  lessons  in  contempt,  as  the  warreners  and  shepherds  of  Norfolk 
would  have  held  them  half  a  century  before ;  and  would  have  "smiled 
at  being  told  of  another  race  arising  who  should  pay  ten  times  their 
rent,  and  at  the  same  time  make  fortunes  by  so  doing."  %  The 
downs  were  not  broken  up,  to  any  extent,  until  our  own  days.  The 
foxes  and  rabbits  have  at  last  been  banished  from  the  wastes 
where  a  few  sheep  used  to  feed  amidst  the  furze  and  fern.  Where 
one  shepherd's  boy  was  kept,  five  men  are  now  employed.  From 
1734  to  1769,  there  had  been  about  five  thousand  acres  inclosed  ; 
from  1772  to  1800,  about  seven  thousand  acres.  During  the  first 
half  of  the  eighteenth  century,  more  than  fifty  thousand  acres  had 
been  inclosed.§  Cranborne  Chase,  where  twelve  thousand  deer 
ranged  over  the  lands,  and  the  labourers  were  systematically 
poachers,  was  not  inclosed  till  1828.  The  condition  of  the  Dorset- 
shire peasantry,  which  was  a  public  reproach,  appears  to  have  been 
essentially  connected  with  "  very  large  tracts  of  foul  land,"  and  with 
"downs  that  occupied  a  large  portion  of  the  county."  The  "mud- 

*  "  Natural  History  of  Wiltshire,"  Preface,  edit.  1847.  t  Ibid.,  p.  103. 

$  "  Eastern  Tour,"  vol.  iii,  p.  409. 

5  "Journal  of  Royal  Agricultural  Society,"  vol.  iii.  p.  440. 


DEVONSHIRE. — SOMERSETSHIRE.  321 

walled  cottages,  composed  of  road-scrapings  and  chalk  and  straw," 
made  the  Dorsetshire  gentlemen  take  shame  to  themselves  in  1843  ; 
and  many  set  about  remedying  the  evil,  in  the  conviction  that 
agricultural  prosperity  and  a  wretched  and  demoralized  population 
could  not  exist  together. 

Aubrey  has  an  interesting  story  of  the  agriculture  of  the  middle 
of  the  seventeenth  century.  "  The  Devonshire  men  were  the 
earliest  improvers.  I  heard  Oliver  Cromwell,  Protector,  at  dinner 
at  Hampton  Court,  1657  or  8,  tell  the  lord  Arundell  of  Wardour, 
and  the  lord  Fitzwilliam,  that  he  had  been  in  all  the  counties  of 
England,  and  that  the  Devonshire  husbandry  was  the  best."*  In 
1848,  it  is  written,  "  It  cannot  be  denied  that  the  farming  of  Devon 
is  at  the  present  time  inferior  to  that  of  most  of  the  counties  of 
England."  f  And  yet  a  large  proportion  of  the  Devonshire  popu- 
lation are,  as  they  always  have  been,  agricultural.  The  quantity  of 
waste  land  is  very  great.  Dartmoor  contains  a  quarter  of  a  million 
of  acres,  about  one  half  of  the  wastes  of  Devonshire.  The  severity 
of  the  climate  of  Dartmoor  is  attributed  as  much  to  the  want  of 
drainage  as  to  its  great  elevation.  J  Any  attempts  at  cultivating 
these  s'terile  regions  would  have  been  commercially  useless  in  the 
eighteenth  century,  when  so  many  fertile  districts  remained  uncul- 
tivated. The  absolute  necessity  of  supplying  the  great  mining  and 
metal-working  population  of  South  Wales  with  the  farm  produce 
that  cannot  be  raised  in  their  own  boundaries,  may  eventually  clothe 
even  the  barrens  of  North  Devon  with  fertility.  § 

Somersetshire  presented  to  Arthur  Young  a  signal  instance  of 
neglect  in  its  vast  ranges  of  waste.  High  land  and  low  land  were 
equally  unimproved.  Leaving  Bridgewater  on  his  road  to  Bath,  he 
passed  "  within  sight  of  a  very  remarkable  tract  of  country  called 
King's  Sedgmoor."  He  described  this  as  a  flat  black  peat  bog,  so  rich 
that  its  eleven  thousand  acres  wanted  nothing  but  draining  to  be 
capable  of  the  highest  cultivation.  "  At  present,"  he  says,  "  it  is 
so  encompassed  by  higher  lands  that  the  water  has  no  way  to  get 
off  but  by  evaporation.  In  winter  it  is  a  sea,  and  yields  scarce  any 
f "food,  except  in  very  dry  summers."  ||  King's  Sedgmoor  had  prob- 
ably been  little  changed  from  1685,  when  Monmouth  looked  from 
the/top  of  Bridgewater  Church  on  the  royal  army  encamped  in  the 
morass,  amidst  ditches  and  causeways,  and  speculated  upon  anight 
march  by  which  he  should  surprise  his  enemy,  f  Much  of  this 

*  "  Natural  History  of  Wiltshire,"  p.  103,  Britton's  edit. 

t  "  Journal  of  Royal  Agricultural  Society,"  vol.  ix.  p.  495-  *  ftnf.,p.  486- 

§  See  an  interesting  paper  in  "  Journal  of  Bath  and  West  of  England  S>   aety,     v 
jriii.  1860.  .  . 

||  "  Eastern  Tour,"  vol.  iv.  p.  .3.  *  AnU>  «*•  «*  P-  S«. 

VOL.    VI.— 21 


J22  HISTORY   OF    ENGLAND. 

moorland  is  now  under  arable  cultivation,  and  contains  some  of  the 
richest  grazing-land  of  the  country.*  The  Quantock  Hills  are 
described  by  Young  as  wholly  waste  ;  as  eighteen  thousand  acres 
yielding  nothing.  This  range  is  now  smiling  with  farms  and  gen- 
tlemen's residences,  with  woods  and  plantations.  Exmoor,  con- 
sisting of  twenty  thousand  acres,  was  crown  land,  yielding  a  scanty 
picking  to  a  few  hundred  ponies,  and  summer  feed  to  sheep  from 
neighbouring  farms.  Even  from  the  time  of  its  inclosure,  improve- 
ments have  been  very  slowly  curtailing  the  range  of  the  black-cock. 
The  wild  stag  has  not  disappeared.  A  dwindled  breed  of  sheep, 
kept  chiefly  for  their  wool,  still  occupy  the  sheep  walks.  "  Some- 
times," says  Mr.  Pusey,  "  you  find  a  large  piece  of  the  best  land 
inclosed  with  a  high  fence,  and  you  hope  that  the  owner  is  about 
to  begin  tilling  his  freehold.  On  the  contrary,  the  object  of  this 
improvement  is  to  keep  out  the  only  sign  of  farming,  the  sheep, 
and  to  preserve  the  best  of  the  land  (because  where  the  land  is 
best  the  covert  is  highest)  an  undisturbed  realm  of  the  black-cock." 
And  yet  Mr.  Pusey  saw  that  Exmoor  consisted  in  great  part  of 
sound  land  ;  and  a  farmer  said  to  him,  "  here  is  land  enough  idle 
to  employ  the  surplus  population  of  England."  Every  black-cock, 
in  Mr.  Pusey's  opinion,  had  cost  more  than  a  full-fed  ox.f  In 
Somersetshire  the  disproportion  between  the  population  and  the 
amount  of  agricultural  employment  is  very  great.  For  every  100 
acres  in  this  county  there  were  41  persons  returned  in  the  census 
of  1841  ;  in  Norfolk  there  were  32  persons,  and  in  Lincoln  22,  tak- 
ing the  average  of  the  several  counties.:}: 

Of  Cornwall,  it  need  only  be  remarked  that  its  agriculture,  at 
the  end  of  the  last  century,  was  a  very  secondary  object.  Fishers 
and  miners  constituted  the  great  body  of  the  population.  At  the 
present  time  not  more  than  7  per  cent,  are  agricultural.  The  farms 
were  small,  as  they  still  are,  chiefly  cultivated  by  the  occupier  and 
his  family.  Corn  crop  formerly  followed  corn  crop  till  the  soil 
would  yield  no  more.  The  turnip-culture  was  unknown  till  1815. 
But  improvement  is  making  its  way  against  old  prejudices  ;  and 
the  Cornish  cultivator  may  in  time  be  as  remarkable  for  intelligence 
as  the  Cornish  miner. 

South  Wales,  before  the  war  of  the  French  Revolution,  grew 
little  corn,  and  pasturage  was  the  main  occupation.  The  peasantry 
lived  chiefly  upon  oatmeal  and  barley-meal.  The  war  came,  and 
corn  was  grown  for  export  to  England.  The  iron  works  and  cop- 
per works  multiplied  ;  and  then  South  Wales  in  time  became  an 

*  "  Journal  of  Royal  Agricultural  Society,"  vol.  xi.  p.  698. 

t  Ibid.,  vol.  iv.  p.  309.  Ibid.,  rol.  xi.  p.  547. 


WALES. WEST    MIDLAND   COUNTIES.  323 

importing  district.  North  Wales  was  almost  exclusively  pastoral. 
The  small  sheep  ran  upon  the  mountains  for  three  or  four  years 
till  they  were  sold  to  drovers.  The  lean  black  cattle  could  not  be 
fattened  where  they  grew,  but  were  drafted  off  to  the  border  fairs. 
A  little  tillage  gradually  mingled  with  the  pasturage  ;  but  all  the 
modern  system  of  economizing  manures  for  cereal  crops,  and  of 
feeding  stock  with  green  crops,  was  utterly  unknown.  Like  the 
cultivators  of  most  mountainous  districts,  remote  from  towns,  the 
farmers  and  the  labourers  were  equally  prejudiced  and  obstinate  in 
their  adherence  to  old  practices.  Much  of  this  conceit  still  abides, 
with  the  hard  diet,  and  the  coarse  home-made  frieze,  of  former 
days. 

The  West  Midland  counties  present  few,  if  any,  remarkable  ag- 
ricultural features  which  it  may  be  proper  to  notice,  with  the  view 
to  mark  the  contrast  between  the  past  and  the  present.  In  Glouces- 
tershire the  sheep  farms  upon  the  Cotswolds,  and  the  dairies  in  the 
valley  of  the  Severn,  are  not  peculiar  to  recent  times.  Cider  and 
Perry  are  produced,  as  of  yore.  The  Gloucestershire  farmer  plant- 
ed his  beans,  and  sometimes  his  wheat,  in  drills,  before  drilling- 
machines  were  invented.  The  Gloucestershire  labourer,  slowly  as 
he  moves,  has  kept  that  slow  movement  with  his  team,  like  others 
of  the  west,  from  time  immemorial.  Herefordshire,  Shropshire, 
and  Worcestershire,  have  not  started  into  good  cultivation  in  the 
course  of  half  a  century,  but  have  gone  on  steadily  improving. 

One  singular  example  of  the  slowness  with  which  novel  culti- 
vation was  extended,  and  new  products  were  used,  has  been  record- 
ed, by  an  octogenarian,  of  his  native  county  of  Worcester.     The 
late  Mr.  Thomas  Wright  Hill— a  man  most  deservedly  venerated 
in  his  own  day,  and  whose  sons  have  done  service  to  their  country 
which  will  not  speedily  be  forgotten— says  in  an  autobiographical 
fragment,  "  My  uncle  had  heard  of  potatoes  ''—this  was  about  1 750 
— "  perhaps  tasted  that  root.     In  any  case,  however,  he  procured 
some  seed  potatoes  from  a  gentleman's  gardener  near  Bewdley, 
and  planted  them  in  his  garden.     The  plants  came  up  and  gave 
^  every  promise  of  an  excellent  crop ;  but  when  the  time  of  potatoe 
(    harvest  arrived,  and  the  tops  were  well  ripened,  my  uncle  gathered 
1       afewbf  their  balls,  and  to  his  utter  disappointment  found  them 
^njthmg  but  good  potatoes."     The  stems  withered  during  the  win- 
ter.    The  spring  came  :  and  when  the  good  man  dug  up  his  sup- 
posed unproductive  patch,  he  found  that  the  plant  which    Raleigh 
gave  to  Devonshire,  and  which  was  the  common  food  of  Lanca- 
shire, was  worth  cultivating.* 

*  "  Remains  of  T.  W.  Hill,"  privately  printed,  1859. 


324 


HISTORY   OF    ENGLAND. 


In  Warwickshire,  the  system  of  under-drainage  was  discovered 
accidentally  by  Joseph  Elkington,  of  Princethorpe,  in  1764.  His 
fields  were  so  wet  as  to  rot  his  sheep.  He  endeavoured  in  vain  to 
drain  them  by  a  deep  trench,  but  could  not  effect  any  real  remedy. 
He  was  meditating  by  the  side  of  his  drain,  when  a  man  passing 
with  a  crow-bar,  the  inquiring  farmer  took  the  tool,  and  forced  it 
three  or  four  feet  below  the  bottom  of  his  trench,  with  a  view  of 
discovering  the  nature  of  the  sub-soil.  Water  burst  up  when  he 
removed  the  crow-bar,  and  ran  plentifully  into  the  drain.  He  act- 
ed upon  the  hint,  by  boring  ;  rendered  his  own  land  fertile  ;  and 
received  a  reward  of  a  thousand  pounds  from  Parliament  for  the 
improvements  consequent  upon  his  discovery.*  Staffordshire,  the 
country  of  potteries  and  collieries,  was  too  rapidly  advancing  at 
the  end  of  the  last  century  in  manufactures  to  exhibit  great  changes 
in  cultivation.  Its  wastes,  in  some  parts,  are  still  uncultivated. 
Cannock  Chase,  a  low  ridge  of  thirteen  thousand  acres,  with  the 
Potteries  and  the  fires  of  Dudley  within  view,  is  described  by  Mr. 
Pusey  as  a  fertile  wilderness,  feeding  only  a  few  starving  sheep, 
but  capable  of  being  brought  under  the  plow.f 

To  speak  of  Lancashire  in  connection  with  agriculture'  may 
appear  like  an  attempt  to  "  give  to  Zembla  fruits,  to  Barca  flowers." 
Yet  Lancashire  was  an  agricultural  county  at  the  period  ve  profess 
to  describe ;  and  its  slowly  developing  manufactures  were  inti- 
mately blended  with  the  occupations  of  an  agricultural  population. 
We  shall  have  to  trace  the  association  of  the  spinning-wheel  in  the 
village  and  the  loom  in  the  town,  in  our  next  chapter.  Meanwhile, 
before  the  cotton  aera  arrived,  Southern  Lancashire  was  very  im- 
perfectly cultivating  the  surface  of  its  great  coal-fields.  The  farms 
were  small ;  the  implements  rude  ;  the  cultivators  poor  and  preju- 
diced. Chat-Moss  was,  of  course,  left  to  its  primeval  state  of  des- 
olation, man  scarcely  daring  to  treaci  where  the  railway  now  bears 
its  thundering  burthens.  The  middle  district,  with  the  exception 
of  Preston,  is  wholly  agricultural,  as  it  was  in  the  last  century. 
On  the  north  of  the  Ribble,  the  hill- farmers  are  a  primitive  race, 
differing  little  from  their  grandfathers  and  great  grandfathers. 
Pasturing  their  black-faced  sheep  upon  the  moors,  they  care  little 
for  the  quality  of  the  land.  They  have  no  green  crops,  and  no 
farm-yards  for  their  cows  in  the  winter.  Turf  is  their  only  fuel, 
and  their  chief  food  is  the  oat-cake  baked  on  the  hot  hearth. 
What  these  cultivators  are  now  may  show  what  they  were  eighty 
years  ago.  We  descend  into  the  district  called  the  Fylde,  to  the 

*  Sinclair's  "  Code  of  Agriculture." 

t  "Journal  of  Royal  Agricultural  Society,"  vol.  iv.  p.  310. 


CHESHIRE. — YORKSHIRE.  325 

north  of  the  Wyre,  and  we  look  upon  operations  which  are  now  as 
much  a  modern  triumph  for  Lancashire  as  the  wealth  of  her  facto- 
ries. The  mosses  of  this  district  amount  to  twenty  thousand  acres. 
"  From  a  state  of  perfect  sterility,  producing  nothing  but  moor-fowl 
and  snipes,  they  are  now  being  gradually  converted  into  the  most 
productive  land  of  the  kingdom."  * 

Cheshire,  like  Lancashire,  was,  for  a  large  portion  of  the  county, 
in  the  transition  state  from  agriculture  to  manufactures,  in  the 
middle  of  the  reign  of  George  III.  Its  rich  pastures  and  its  dairy- 
farms  have  only  been  improved  in  degree,  but  not  in  kind.  Its 
arable  was  imperfectly  cultivated,  without  green  crops.  One  mode 
of  raising  the  productiveness,  both  of  arable  and  pasture,  was  for- 
bidden by  a  barbarous  fiscal  policy.  The  foul  or  dirtied  salt,  pro- 
duced in  hundreds  of  tons  by  the  salt-works  of  Cheshire,  was  utter- 
ly lost ;  the  heavy  duty  laid  upon  refuse  salt  preventing  its  use  as 
manure. f 

To  attempt  any  minute  description  of  the  rural  condition  of 
Yorkshire,  eighty  or  ninety  years  ago,  divided  as  that  great  county 
is  into  three  ridings,  each  having  many  peculiar  characteristics  of 
soil  and  climate,  is  far  beyond  the  scope  of  our  imperfect  sketch 
of  national  progress  in  this  department  of  industry.  The  great 
landed  proprietors  of  the  time  led  the  way  to  that  course  of  im- 
provement which  has  made  Yorkshire  as"  remarkable  in  agriculture 
as  in  manufactures.  The  marquis  of  Rockingham,  the  leader  of 
the  Whig  party,  was  more  successful  as  a  cultivator  than  as  a  pol- 
itician. But,  even  around  Wentworth  House,  he  had  to  contend 
with  those  obstinate  prejudices  which  beset  the  rich  and  noble,  as 
well  as  the  poor  and  lowly,  improver.  The  marquis  had  to  deal 
with  "  a  set  of  men  of  contracted  ideas,  used  to  a  stated  road,  with 
deviations  neither  to  the  right  nor  left."  Arthur  Young  is  not 
describing  legislators,  but  farmers.  "  His  lordship  finding  that 
discourse  and  reasoning  could  not  prevail  over  the  obstinacy  of 
their  understandings,  determined  to  convince  their  eyes."  He 
showed  the  agriculturists  of  the  West  Riding,  in  the  management 
of  two  thousand  acres  of  his  own  lands,  what  would  be  the  result 
of  draining,  of  cultivating  turnips  properly,  of  using  better  imple- 
/^~"  ments.  "  Well  convinced  that  argument  and  persuasion  would 
have  little  effect  with  the  John  Trot  geniuses  of  farming,  he  deter- 
V  mined  to  set  the  example  of  good  husbandry  as  the  only  probable 
"—means  of  being  successful. "f 

*  "Journal  of  Royal  Agricultural  Society,"  vol.  x.  p. 

t  Aikin's  "Manchester,"  p.  45. 

t  "  Northern  Tour,"  vol.  i.  pp.  307  to  353. 


326  HISTORY   OF   ENGLAND. 

In  the  East  Riding  we  may  trace,  in  the  pages  of  Arthur  Young^ 
the  beginnings  of  that  extension  of  the  area  of  cultivation,  which 
has  converted  a  quarter  of  a  million  of  acres  of  almost  barren  hills 
— the  chalk  district  of  the  Wolds— into  a  country  of  luxuriant  har- 
vests, and  of  pasture  and  green  crops  for  innumerable  herds  and 
flocks.  There  was  a  great  improver  at  work  upon  these  wild  moors 
in  1770.  Sir  Digby  Legard,  who  resided  at  Ganton,  on  the  edge 
of  the  Wolds,  experimented  upon  five  thousand  acres  of  uninclosed 
wold-land  near  his  house.  About  five  hundred  acres  were  in  till- 
age. The  land  was  let  at  a  shilling  an  acre.  The  annual  value  of 
the  corn  and  wool  of  the  five  thousand  acres  was  under  iooo/., 
and  they  maintained  a  hundred  inhabitants.  He  was  sanguine 
enough  to  believe  that  the  same  land  might,  at  no  great  expense, 
be  so  cultivated  as  in  a  few  years  to  produce  a  five-fold  increase  of 
corn,  support  twice  the  number  of  cattle,  and  be  let  at  eight  times 
its  then  rent.  Mr.  George  Legard,5n  his  Prize  Essay  on  the  farming 
of  the  East  Riding,  says,  "  It  can  be  proved  that  in  the  very  dis- 
trict to  which  sir  Digby  Legard  refers,  the  produce  of  wheat  has 
been  doubled,  that  of  oats  has  been  increased  five-fold  ;.of  barley  six- 
fold ;  and  that  wherever  skill  and  capital  have  been  applied  to  these 
uncultivated  hills,  rent  has  been  advanced  even  as  much  as  twenty- 
fold."  * 

Arthur  Young  rides  on,  during  his  Tour,  amidst  the  waste 
places  and  the  cultivated  grounds  of  Yorkshire,  with  alternate 
feelings  of  regret  and  of  exultation.  He  passes  from  Newton  by 
the  road  "across  Hambledon,  a  tract  of  country  which  has  not  the 
epithet  black  given  it  for  nothing ;  for  it  is  a  continued  range  of 
black  moors,  eleven  or  twelve  miles  long,  and  from  four  to  eight 
broad.  It  is  melancholy  to  travel  through  such  desolate  land,  when 
it  is  so  palpably  capable  of  improvement.''!  After  traversing  a 
vast  range  of  dreary  waste,  he  looks  down  "  upon  an  immense 
plain,  comprehending  almost  all  Cleveland,  finely  cultivated,  the 
verdure  beautiful."  J  About  Newbigill  he  sees  "  many  improve- 
ments of  moors,  by  that  spirited  cultivator,  the  earl  of  Darlington." 
On  the  road  from  Bowes  to  Brough,  he  deplores  that,  of  a  line  of 
twelve  miles,  through  a  country  exhibiting  a  fine  deep  red  loam  not 
more  than  nine  miles  are  cultivated.  "  It  is  extremely  melancholy 
to  view  such  tracts  of  land,  that  are  indisputably  capable  of  yielding 
many  beneficial  crops,  lie  totally  waste :  while  in  many  parts  of  the 
kingdom  farms  are  so  scarce  and  difficult  to  be  procured,  that  one 
is  no  sooner  vacant  than  twenty  applications  are  immediately  made 

*  "  Journal  of  Royal  Agricultural  Society,"  vol.  ix.  p.  95. 

t  "  Northern  Tour,"  vol.  ii.  p.  98-  t  Ibid.,  p.  202. 


IMPROVERS. 


327 


for  it."  *  At  Swinton,  near  Masham,  where  Mr.  Danby  had  a  cot 
iiery,  upon  the  edge  of  his  vast  moorlands  which  did  not  yield  him 
a  farthing  an  acre,  Arthur  Young  saw  an  example  of  improvement 
which  showed  him  of  what  the  land  was  capable.  The  proprietor 
had  allowed  some  of  the  more  industrious  of  his  colliers  each  to 
inclose  a  field  out  of  the  moors.  Upon  one  of  these  humble  im- 
provers the  agricultural  tourist  has  conferred  a  fame  as  truly  de- 
served as  that  of  the  Cokes  and  Bedfords  of  that  age.  James 
Croft,  one  of  the  colliers,  thirteen  years  before  Young  visited  the 
district,  began  his  husbandry  by  taking  an  acre  of  moor.  By  inde- 
fatigable labour  he  soon  raised  oats  and  barley,  and  obtained  fine 
grass  land.  He  next  took  eight  acres  which  he  could  not  culti- 
vate all  at  once,  for  the  land  was  full  of  large  stones.  But  he  finally 
succeeded.  When  his  eulogist  saw  him  he  was  at  work  upon  eight 
acres  more,  attacking  the  most  enormous  stones,  cutting  them  in 
pieces,  carrying  them  away,  and  then  bringing  mould  to  fill  the 
holes  up.  He  had  thus  brought  nine  acres  into  excellent  cultiva- 
tion. He  was  clearing  eight  more  acres  of  fresh  land,  paring  and 
burning,  confident  of  deriving  from  them  an  additional  support  for 
his  family.  Had  James  Croft  assistance  either  of  money  or  labour  ? 
He  had  done  everything  with  his  own  hands.  He  had  worked  in 
the  mine  from  twelve  o'clock  at  night  to  the  noon  of  the  next  day. 
"  From  the  time  of  leaving  off  work  in  the  mine,  till  that  of  sleep- 
ing, he  regularly  spent  in  unremitting  labour  on  his  farm."  The 
enthusiasm  of  Arthur  Young  on  beholding  this  marvel  of  industry 
becomes  eloquent :  "  Such  a  conduct  required  a  genius  of  a 
peculiar  cast.  Daring  in  his  courage,  and  spirited  in  his  ideas, 
the  most  extensive  plans  are  neither  too  vast  nor  too  complicated 
to  be  embraced  with  facility  by  his  bold  and  comprehensive  imag- 
ination. .  .  .  The  greatest,  and  indeed  the  only,  object  of  his 
thoughts  is  the  improvement  of  the  wilds  that  surround  him,  over 
which  he  casts  an  anxious  but  magnanimous  eye,  wishing  for  the 
freedom  to  attack,  with  his  own  hands,  an  enemy,  the  conquest  of 
whom  would  yield  laurels  to  a  man  of  ample  fortune."  f  Out  of 
such  stuff  as  James  Croft  was  made  of,  has  arisen  that  wondrous 
race  of  enterprising  men  of  the  North  who — some  from  beginnings 
as  humble  as  this  cultivator  of  the  moors — have  largely  contributed 
to  build  up  the  material  prosperity  of  their  country  ;  have  contend- 
x"~6d  with  prejudice,  with  jealousy,  with  dishonesty ;  have  been  ridi- 
[  culed  as  projectors  under  the  once  popular  nickname  of  "  con- 
V  jurors/5  " — the  daring  men  who,  whether  as  creators  of  canals  and 
s,  inventors  of  machines,  organizers  of  factories,  adventu- 

*  "  Northern  Tour,"  vol.  ii.  p-  206.  t  Ibid.,  p.  298. 


328  HISTORY   OF    ENGLAND. 

rous  merchants,  or  spirited  cultivators,  have  brought  to  their  tasks 
the  same  qualities  as  James  Croft  brought — "  a  penetration  that 
sees  the  remotest  difficulty  ;  a  prudence  and  firmness  of  mind  that 
removes  every  one,  the  moment  it  is  foreseen."  * 

Young  says  of  his  agricultural  collier,  "his ideas  are  clear  and 
shining ;  and  though  his  language  is  totally  unrefined  and  provin- 
cial, insomuch  that  some  attention  is  necessary  to  comprehend  the 
plainest  of  his  meaning,  yet  whoever  will  take  the  pains  to  ex- 
amine  him  will  find  him  a  genius  In  husbandry."  Considerable 
attention  would  certainly  have  been  necessary,  if  the  intelligent 
Yorkshireman  had  expressed  himself,  as  to  the  troubles  of  a 
Craven  cultivator,  in  what  is  represented  to  have  been  the  lan- 
guage of  the  country  at  the  beginning  of  the  present  century.  To 
the  question  of  farmer  Giles,  "  Whear's  yawer  Tom  ?  "  neighbour 
Bridget  thus  replies  :  "  He's  gaan  aboon  two  howers  sin  weet  fad- 
der  to  git  eldin,  nabody  knaws  how  far;  an  th'  gaite  fray  th'  moor 
is  seea  dree,  unbane,  and  parlous  ;  Lang  Rig  brow  is  seea  brant,  at 
they're  foarced  to  stang  th'  cart ;  an  th'  wham,  boon  t'  gill  heead, 
is  seea  mortal  sumpy  an  soft,  at  it  taks  cart  up  tot  knaff  ommost 
iv'ry  yerd.  Gangin  ower  some  heealdin  grund,  they  welted  cart 
ower  yesterday,  and  brack  th'  barkum,  haams,  and  two  felks."  f 
The  author  of  "  The  Craven  Dialect "  says  that  the  inhabitants  of 
this  district,  pent  up  by  their  native  mountains,  and  principally 
engaged  in  agricultural  pursuits,  "  had  no  opportunity  of  corrupting 
the  purity  of  their  language  by  the  adoption  of  foreign  idioms." 
He  expresses  a  regret,  with  which  few  will  sympathize,  that, 
"  since  the  introduction  of  commerce,  and  in  consequence  of  that 
a  greater  intercourse,  the  simplicity  of  the  language  has,  of  late 
years,  been  much  corrupted."  The  dialect  of  Craven  has  taken 
its  departure  with  the  herds  of  wild  white  cattle,  whose  cows  hid 
their  young  in  the  ferns  and  underwood  of  the  wastes  of  Craven, 
and  whose  bulls  were  hunted  by  large  assemblages  of  horsemen 
and  their  followers  on  foot,  with  something,  of  the  grandeur  of 
the  chase  of  the  middle  ages.J 

The  four  Northern  Counties  have  many  points  of  interest, 
especially  in  the  character  of  their  population.  Durham  was  a 

*  "Northern  Tour,"  vol.  ii.  p.  299. 

t  From  "The  Craven  Dialect,"  1824,  p.  6.  The  following  are  from  the  "Glossa- 
ry" of  this  curious  volume  :  eldin,  fuel  ;  gaite,  road  ;  dree,  tedious  ;  unbane  ;  distant ; 
parlous,  perilous ;  brant,  steep  ;  stang,  to  put  a  lever  on  the  wheel ;  -wham,  bog ;  boon,  or 
bane,  near ;  gill,  glen;  sumpy,  wet:  tot,  the  whole ;  knaff,  nave  ;  heealdin,  sloping; 
welted,  overturned  ;  barkum,  collar  made  of  bark  \felks,  felloes  of  a  wheel. 

$  Culley,  in  Bewick's  "  Quadrupeds." 


NORTHUMBERLAND.  329 

very  neglected  agricultural  district  in  the  second  half  of  the  last 
century.  "  Within  a  comparatively  recent  period,  a  large  portion 
of  this  county  was  uninclosed  and  uncultivated,  and  lay  either  in 
wide  tracts  of  desolate  moor,  or  in  more  sheltered,  though  equally 
neglected,  '  stinted  pastures.'  "  *  The  land  under  cultivation  was 
universally  in  want  of  draining.  The  farm-yard  manures  were 
insufficient,  for  little  stock  was  kept.  The  county  was  indeed 
famous  for  a  breed  of  cattle  known  as  the  Durham  short-horns — 
animals  which  were  fattened  into  wonderful  size,  and  were  sold  at 
fabulous  prices.  This  breed  has  been  improved  into  the  most  es- 
teemed stock  of  England. 

Arthur  Young  is  indignant  at  the  wretched  breed  of  sheep  that 
ranged  over  the  Northumberland  moors,  in  flocks  as  large  as 
forty  thousand,  which  did  not  pay  for  their  keep  more  than  a 
shilling  or  two  per  head.  The  millions  of  acres  of  improveable 
moors  he  holds  to  be  "  as  waste  as  when  ravaged  by  the  fury  of 
the  Scottish  borderers."  f  Northumberland  contained  "large 
districts,  which  even  within  the  last  eighty  years  were  in  a  state 
of  nature  covered  with  broom,  furze,  or  rushes  "  J  It  was  long 
after  the  Union  that  the  inhabitants  of  this  border  land  acquired 
settled  and  industrious  habits.  But  the  fertile  vales  of  the  northern 
parts  of  the  county  attracted  settlers,  who  soon  introduced  better 
cultivation  than  that  of  the  small  crofts  which  surrounded  the  misera- 
ble farm  hovels.  The  famous  agriculturists  known  everywhere  by 
the  name  of  Culley  settled  in  the  district  of  Glendale  in  1767. 
Their  example,  and  that  of  other  cultivators  and  breeders,  "  gave  a 
stimulus  to  the  surrounding  district ;  and  in  a  few  years  the  inexpert 
operations  and  languid  system  of  husbandry  which  had  previously 
prevailed,  gave  place  to  others  of  extraordinary  expedition  and 
efficacy."  § 

When  Gray  entered  Westmorland  from  Yorkshire,  in  1 769,  he 
saw  a  pleasing  display  of  a  rural  population:  "A  mile  and  a  half 
from  Brough,  on  a  hill,  lay  a  great  army  encamped."  It  was  the 
Brough  cattle  fair,  held  on  the  29th  and  3oth  of  September.  "  On 
a  nearer  approach,  appeared  myriads  of  horses  and  cattle  on  the 
road  itself ;  and  in  all  the  fields  round  me,  a  brisk  stream  hurrying 
cross  the  way; — thousands  of  clean  healthy  people  in  their  best 
parti-coloured  apparel,  farmers  and  their  families,  esquires  and 
their  daughters,  hastening  up  from  the  dales  and  down  the  fells  on 
every  side,  glittering  in  the  sun,  and  pressing  forward  to  join  the 

"  Journal  of  Royal  Agricultural  Society,"  vol.  xvii.  p.  93. 
t  "  Northern  Tour,"  vol.  iv.  p.  337. 

rfurnal  of  Royal  Agricultural  Society,"  vol.  ii.  p.  151.  §  H>id->  P-  '53- 


33°  HISTORY   OF   ENGLAND. 

throng."  *  The  poet  travels  on  into  the  heart  of  the  beautiful 
Lake  District.  At  the  village  of  Grange,  near  Borrodale,  he  finds 
a  contrast  to  the  bustle  of  the  fair  at  Brough.  He  is  entertained 
by  a  young  farmer  and  his  mother  with  milk  and  thin  oaten  cakes, 
and  "butter  that  Sisera  would  have  jumped  at,  though  not  in  a 
lordly  dish."  The  farmer  was  a  noted  man  of  the  district.  He  was 
"  himself  the  man  that  last  year  plundered  the  eagle's  aiery :  all 
the  dale  are  up  in  arms  on  such  an  occasion,  for  they  lose  abun- 
dance of  lambs  yearly."  The  bold  dalesman  "  was  let  down  from 
the  cliff  on  ropes  to  the  shelf  of  rock  on  which  the  eagle's  nest  was 
built,  the  people  above  shouting  and  hollowing  to  fright  the  old 
birds,  which  flew  screaming  round,  but  did  not  dare  to  attack  him." 
The  eagles  are  gone,  never  to  return.  Every  season,  says  Miss 
Martineau,  there  is  a  rumour  of  an  eagle  having  visited  some  point 
or  another;  "but,  on  the  whole,  we  find  the  preponderance  of  be- 
lief is  against  there  being  any  eagle's  nest  amongst  the  mountains 
of  Westmorland  or  Cumberland."  f 

Poetry  has  made  the  Lake  District  her  home  ;  and  amidst  the 
glorious  mountains,  the  lakes  and  the  tarns,  will  Poetry  every 
abide.  The  gifted  writer  who  has  added  another  celebrated  name 
to  the  illustrious  who  have  delighted  here  to  dwell,  has  said  of  a 
•mountainous  district,  "  it  is  the  only  kind  of  territory  in  which  util- 
ity must  necessarily  be  subordinated  to  beauty  ....  Man  may 
come  and  live,  if  he  likes,  and  if  he  can  ;  but  it  must  be  in  some 
humble  corner,  by  permission,  as  it  were,  and  not  through  conflict 
with  the  genius  of  the  place.  Nature  and  beauty  here  rule  and 
occupy  :  man  and  his  desires  are  subordinate,  and  scarcely  discern- 
ible." J  It  was  thus,  on  the  slopes  of  the  mountains,  or  in  vales 
inaccessible,  that  the  Dalesmen,  deriving  their  name  from  the  word 
deyler,  which  means  to  distribute,  occupied  their  little  crofts  as 
tenants  of  their  ecclesiastical  or  military  lord.  These  were  the 
predecessors  of  the  "  statesmen,"  or  "  estatesmen,"  who  still  sur- 
vive, though  in  diminished  numbers,  struggling  with  their  small 
skill  against  the  march  of  agricultural  science  and  the  extension  of 
farm  holdings.  Even  nature  herself  cannot  resist  this  progress. 
The  Kentmere  Tarn,  by  whose  shallow  waters  Bernard  Gilpin 
might  have  meditated  three  centuries  ago,  has  been  drained  in  our 
own  day.  Wherever  corn  can  be  made  to  spring,  the  reed  and  the 
rush  no  longer  flourish.  The  social  condition  of  the  population  is 
as  rapidly  changing.  The  shepherd  will  still  go  upon  the  hills, 
"into  the  heart  of  many  thousand  mists."  His  dog  will  still  bring' 
down  the  flock  from  heights  untrodden  by  man — that  faithful  ser- 

*  "  Journal."  t  "  The  Land  we  Live  in,"  vol.  ii.  p.  235.  t  Ibid.,  p.  217. 


THE   LAKE   DISTRICT. 


331 


vant,  of  whom  it  has  been  said,  "  without  the  shepherd's  dog,  the 
mountainous  land  in  England  would  not  be  worth  sixpence."     The 
occasional  Pedlar  will  still  carry  his  pack  to  the  cottage  door.     But 
the  whole  district  has  been  brought  into  communication  with  the 
outer  world ;    and   its   inner  life  has   undergone  a  very  marked 
change.     "  Book  farming  "  is  no  longer  held  up  to  ridicule.*     Tur- 
nips were  first  grown  as  a  field-crop  in  the  vale  of  Bassenthwaite, 
in  1 793.     Oats  are  still  half  the  grain  crop ;  but  the  food  of  the 
people  is  wondrously  altered  since  the  time  when  a  wheaten  loaf 
could  not  be  bought  in  Carlisle,  and  "  it  was  only  a  rich  family  that 
used  a  peck  of  wheat  in  the  course  of  a  year,  and  that  was  used  at 
Christmas. "f     Hemp  and  flax  were  grown  in  small  patches  for 
domestic  use,' the  females  spinning  the  flax,  and  the  males  plating 
the  hemp  into  cordage,  for  leather  for  harness  was  not  used  till  the 
end  of  the  last   century.     "  Wonderful  Robert  Walker,"  the  good 
curate  of  Seathwaite,  spun  the  wool  out  of  which  the  cloth   was 
woven  which  his  wife  made  up  into  apparel  for  themselves   and 
their  eight  children.     But  Yorkshire  and  Lancashire  manufactures 
have  banished  such  thrift.     Wordsworth  records  how  the  change 
from  hand-labour  to  machinery  intruded  itself   into    Seathwaite : 
"  At  a  small  distance  from  the  parsonage  has  been  erected  a  mill 
for  spinning  yarn.     It  is  a  mean  and  disagreeable  object,  though 
not  unimportant  to  the  spectator,  as  calling  to  mind  the  momentous 
changes  wrought  by  such  inventions  in  the  frame  of  society."     The 
spinning  wheel  went  out  when  drills  came  in.     "  About  the  year 
1795,  the  ancestor  of  the  present  Mr.  Dixon,  of  Rucroft  or  Ruck- 
croft  in  the  parish  of  Ainstable,  procured  a  barrow-drill  for  sowing 
his  patch  of  turnips  with  ;  and  so  highly  was  it  esteemed  as  a  sav- 
ing of  labour  by  himself  and  his  neighbours,  that  it  was  lent  all 
round  the  country,  and  worked  day  and  night  during  the  season."  { 
The  one-horse  cart  gradually  drove  out  the  pack-horse,  which  the 
farmer  employed  to  carry  his  grain  to  the  mill  or  to  the  market. 
Looking  from  Little  Langdale,  "  a  horse  road  is  discerned  sloping 
up  the  brown  side  of  Wrynose,  opposite.     This  track  was  once  the 
only  traffic-road  from  Kendal  to  Whitehaven ;  and  it  was  traversed 
by  pack-horses."  §     Not  only  are  the  usages  of  the  Lake  District 
changed,  but  the  inhabitants  are,  in  the  more  beautiful  regions, 
changed  from  poor  cultivators  into  luxurious  gentry  ;  the  miserable 
£arm&steadings  have  given  place  to  splendid  villas.     Gray  shows 

•  *  "  Journal  of  Royal  Agricultural  Society,"  vol.  xiii.  p.  225. 

t  Eden.     "  History  of  the  Poor,"  vol.  i.  p.  564. 

'  Journal  of  Royal  Agricultural  Society,"  vol.   xiii.  p.  *4«- 
"  Land  we  Live  in,"  vol.  it.  p.  254. 


332  HISTORY   OF   ENGLAND. 

us  what  Grasmere  was,  ninety  years  ago  :  "A  white  village,  with 
the  parish  church  rising  in  the  midst  of  it ;  hanging  inclosures,  corn 
fields,  and  meadows  green  as  an  emerald,  with  their  trees,  hedges, 
and  cattle ;  fill  up  the  whole  space  from  the  edge  of  the  water 

Not  a'single  red  tile,  no  flaring  gentleman's  house  or  garden 

walls,  break  in  upon  the  repose  of  this  little  unsuspected  paradise ; 
but  all  is  peace,  rusticity,  and  happy  poverty,  in  its  neatest  and 
most  becoming  attire." 

"  We  entered  Scotland,"  says  Smollett,  "  by  a  frightful  muir  of 
sixteen  miles,  which  promises  very  little  for  the  interior  parts  of 

the  kingdom That  part  of  Scotland  contiguous  to  Berwick, 

nature  seems  to  have  intended  as  a  barrier  between  two  hostile 
nations."  In  a  few  hours  he  sees  a  plain  "  covered  with  as  fine 
wheat  as  ever  I  saw  in  the  most  fertile  parts  of  South  Britain."* 
This  fertility  was  exceptional.  The  agriculture  of  Scotland — even 
in  the  Lothians,  now  models  of  farming  excellence — was  in  the 
rudest  and  almost  barbarous  state,  when  George  III.  came  to  the 
throne.  East  Lothian  claims  the  honour  of  having  led  the  march 
of  improvement.  But  in  the  middle  of  the  last  century  there  was 
not  a  single  mile  of  continuous  hard  road  in  the  district.  Grain 
was  carried  to  market  on  horseback.  The  whole  county  of  Had- 
dington,  long  after  the  middle  of  that  century,  was  open  field.  The 
tenantry  frequently  resided  together  in  a  cluster  of  mean  houses 
called  a  town.  Green  crops  were  unknown,  and  the  thistles  among 
the  corn  were  carefully  gathered  to  feed  the  husbandry  horses.  The 
implements  were  of  the  rudest  kind — "  better  fitted  to  raise  laughter 
than  to  raise  mould,"  according  to  lord  Kaimes,  an  agricultural  im- 
prover. The  married  ploughman  was  paid,  as  now,  in  the  produce  of 
the  farm;  but  he  received  a  far  less  proportion  of  oats  than  at  the 
present  time,  and  he  had  no  potatoes  in  his  patch  of  garden.  The 
only  occupation  that  flourished  was  that  of  smuggling.!  Such  was 
the  agricultural  state  of  the  southern  shores  of  the  Frith  of  Forth. 
The  pastoral  district  of  the  Lammermuir  hills  had  no  improved 
breeds  of  sheep  till  the  beginning  of  the  present  century. 

The  beautiful  country  watered  by  the  Tweed  and  the  Teviot 
was  for  the  greater  part  uninclosed  seventy  years  ago.  Roxburgh- 
shire exhibited  the  dominion  of  the  plough  in  irregular  and  de- 
tached patches  ;  the  intermediate  portions  being  devoted  to  grazing 
cattle,  which  were  put  under  the  charge  of  a  herd,  to  prevent  them 
trespassing  upon  the  scanty  divisions  set  apart  for  corn.J  The* 

*  "  Humphrey  Clinker." 

t  "  New  Statistical  Account  of  Scotland,"  Haddington,  p.  375. 

t  "  Journal  of  Royal  Agricultural  Society,"  vol.  i.p.  105- 


SCOTCH   SHEEP    FLOCKS.  •i-i-t 

produce  of  wheat  was  only  in  the  proportion  of  one-twelfth  to  that 
of  flats  and  barley.  The  great  novelist  has  described  Liddesdale 
as  exhibiting  "  no  inclosures,  no  roads,  almost  no  tillage— a  land 
which  a  patriarch  would  have  chosen  to  feed  his  flocks  and  herds." 
He  has  perhaps  somewhat  exaggerated  the  abundance  of  "  Charlie's 
Hope  " — the  noble  cowhouse  and  its  milch-cows,  the  feeding-house 
with  ten  bullocks  of  the  most  approved  breeds,  the  stable  with  two 
good  teams  of  horses — the  appropriate  wealth  of  so  worthy  a  yeoman 
as  "  Dandie  Dinmont."  *  Selkirkshire  has  been  rendered  familiar 
to  us  by  "  The  Ettrick  Shepherd,"  as  regards  some  aspects  of  its 
pastoral  life.  We  see  his  flock,  as  he  was  driving  them  home, 
suddenly  frightened,  scampering  over  the  hills,  following  by  his 
dog  "Sirrah."  A  dark  night  is  passed  in  fruitless  search,  Hogg 
and  his  man  wandering  over  the  steeps  and  dells  from  midnight 
till  the  rising  sun.  At  length,  at  the  bottom  of  a  deep  ravine,  the 
faithful  colley  and  his  charge  are  found,  not  a  lamb  missing.  This 
is  the  life  which  knows  little  change  from  one  century  to  another ; 
but  time  yet  brings  changes.  Hogg  laments  that  the  black-faced 
"ewiewi'the  crooked  horn  "  had  been  banished  from  her  native 
hills.  "Soberer  records  inform  us  that  the  sheep  which  once  cov- 
ered the  Ettrick  wastes  produced  a  crop  of  wool  of  the  coarsest 
kind,  little  adapted  for  manufacture.!  The  introduction  of  the 
Cheviot  breed  was  one  of  the  marks  of  progress.  The  manage- 
ment of  sheep  flocks  in  Eskdalemuir,  the  mountain  region  of  Dum- 
friesshire, attests  the  innovations  of  a  century.  Smollett  observes 
of  the  sheep  which  he  saw  upon  the  hills,  that  "  their  fleeces  are 
much  damaged  by  the  tar  with  which  they  are  smeared,  to  preserve 
them  from  the  rot  in  winter,  during  which  they  run  wild  night  and 
day,  and  thousands  are  lost  under  huge  wreaths  of  snow.  'Tis  a 
pity  the  farmers  cannot  contrive  some  means  to  shelter  this  useful 
animal  from  the  inclemencies  of  a  rigorous  climate."  J  When  snow 
storms  of  any  long  continuance  came,  it  was  the  practice  of  the 
farmers  of  Eskdalemuir  to  fly  with  their  sheep  to  Annandale.  It 
was  the  same  in  the  neighbouring  mountain  district,  when  every 
part  of  Nithsdale,  Annandale,  and  the  lower  part  of  Eskdale,  were 
filled  with  them.  The  pastures  of  the  valleys  to  which  the  sheep 
fled  are  now  subdivided  and  inclosed.  Better  provision  is  made 
upon  the  hills  for  food  and  for  shelter,  and  the  sheep  continue 
around  their  own  farms. § 

-The  agriculture  of  Ayrshire,  at  the  accession  of  George  III., 

*  "  GW  Mannering."  t  "  New  Statistical  Account,"  Selkirkshire,  p.  76. 

/        t  "  Humphrey  Clinker-" 
\        §  "  New  Statistical  Account,"  vol.  iv.  Durnf.icsshire,  p.  4*°- 


334  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

was  in  a  rude  condition  ;  the  arable  farms  very  small,  the  tenants 
without  capital,  the  tenure  encumbered  with  services  to  the  l^fd- 
lord.  In  the  parish  of  Mauchline  was  the  farm  of  Mosgiel,  upon 
which  Burns  spent  nine  years  of  a  life  of  rural  industry.  In  the 
neighbouring  parish  of  Tarbolton  his  father  dwelt,  on  the  farm  of 
Lochlee.  "  The  Cotter's  Saturday  Night "  is  descriptive  of  the 
simple  household  of  the  humble  cultivator.  The  Cotter,  says 
Gilbert  Burns,  was  "  an  exact  copy  of  my  father  in  his  manners, 
his  family  devotion,  and  exhortations.  He  lived  with  the  most 
rigid  economy,  that  he  might  be  able  to  keep  his  children  at  home, 
thereby  having  an  opportunity  of  watching  the  progress  of  our 
young  minds,  and  forming  in  them  early  habits  of  piety  and  virtue, 
and  from  this  motive  alone  did  he  engage  in  farming,  the  source 
of  all  his  difficulties  and  distresses."  The  supper  that  "  crowns 
their  simple  board  "  is 

"Thehalesome  parritch,  chief  o'  Scotia's  food." 

The  mother,  "  wi'  her  needle  and  her  sheers," 

"  Gars  auld  claes  look  amaist  as  weel's  the  new." 

Burns  prays  that  Scotia's  "  hardy  sons  of  rustic  toil  "  may  long  be 
preserved  "  from  luxury's  contagion."  Smollett  describes  the 
peasantry  as  "  on  a  poor  footing  all  over  the  kingdom ;  "  and  there 
was  then  no  great  distinction  between  the  occupier  of  a  small  farm 
and  his  "  elder  bairns,  at  service  out  amang  the  farmers  roun'.  " 
But  Smollett  says  of  this  peasantry,  "  they  look  better,  and  are 
better  clothed,  than  those  of  the  same  rank  in  Burgundy,  and  many 
other  places  of  France  and  Italy;  nay,  I  will  venture  to  say  they 
are  better  fed,  notwithstanding  the  boasted  wine  of  these  foreign 
countries."  They  seldom  or  never  taste  flesh  meat,  he  adds,  nor 
any  kind  of  strong  liquor,  except  twopenny,  at  times  of  uncommon 
festivity.  He  describes  the  breakfast  of  oat-meal,  or  peas-meal, 
eaten  with  milk;  the  pottage  for  dinner  composed  of  kale,  leeks 
and  barley;  the  supper  of  sowens  or  flummery  of  oat-meal. 
"  Some  of  them  have  potatoes  ;  and  you  find  parsnips  in  every 
peasant's  garden.  They  are  clothed  with  a  coarse  kind  of  russet 
of  their  own  making,  which  is  both  decent  and  warm.  They  dwell 
in  poor  huts,  built  of  loose  stones  and  turf,  without  any  mortar, 
having  a  fireplace  or  hearth  in  the  middle,  generally  made  of  an 
old  mill-stone,  and  a  hole  at  top  to  let  out  the  smoke.  These 
people,  however,  are  content,  and  wonderfully  sagacious.  All  of 
them  read  the  Bible."  Out  of  this  poor  but  acute  stock  came  the 
poet 


LANARKSHIRE. RENFREWSHIRE. 

"  who  walked  in  glory  and  in  joy, 
Following  his  plough  along  the  mountain-side." 


335 


To  judge  from  his  own  verse,  he  must  have  been  as  energetic  in 

his  labour  as  "  his  auld  mare,  Maggie  "  : 

"  Aft  thee  and  I,  in  aught  hours  gaun, 

In  guid  March  weather, 
Hie  turn'd  sax  rood  beside  our  han', 
For  days  thegither." 

Sax  rood  !  This  is  one-half  more  than  was  ploughed  by  the  Suffolk 
"punches."  We  fear  that  the  unprofitable  land  of  Mosgiel  had 
merely  surface  ploughing  with  the  rude  implement  of  poor  Burns's 
time,  as  different  from  the  Suffolk  plough  as  the  soil  was  different 
upon  which  the  punches  worked.  The  fields  about  Mauchline 
"are  of  a  light  sandy,  or  mixed  kind."  * 

The  changes  of  Lanarkshire  and  Renfrewshire  during  eighty 
years  are  more  remarkable  in  manufactures  than  in  agriculture. 
Great  have  been  the  alterations  in  the  industry  of  towns  such  as 
Glasgow  and  Paisley.  But  here,  as  throughout  all  Scotland, 
morasses  have  been  drained,  lochs  have  been  made  to  bear  corn, 
the  domain  of  unproductive  nature  has  been  compelled  to  supply 
the  necessities  of  man..  There  is  a  charming  paper  by  John  Wil- 
son, entitled  "  Our  Parish,"  in  which  the  eloquent  writer  exhibits, 
in  no  placid  mood,  the  ruthless  invader  of  poetical  wastes.  A  great 
part  of  our  Parish,  the  Moor,  was  "  ever  so  many  miles  long,  and 
ever  so  many  miles  broad,  and  nobody  thought  of  guessing  how 
many  miles  round.  But  some  twenty  years  ago  it  was  absolutely 
measured  to  a  rood  by  a  land-louper  of  a  land-surveyor, — distrib- 
uted, drained,  inclosed,  utterly  ruined  for  ever.  No,  not  forever. 
Nature  laughs  to  scorn  Acts  of  Parliament,  and  we  predict  that  in 
a  quarter  of  a  century  she  will  resume  her  management  of  that 
moor.  We  rejoice  to  hear  that  she  is  already  beginning  to  take 
lots  of  it  into  her  own  hands.  Wheat  has  no  business  there,  and 
should  keep  to  the  carses."  The  prophecy  has  no  doubt  failed. 
The  dogma  upon  which  it  is  built  is  obsolete—"  Agriculture,  like 
education,  has  its  bounds. "f 

The  North  Western  parts  of  Scotland  are  noticed  by  Smollett 
as  "by  no  means  fertile  in  corn.  The  ground  is  naturally  barren 
and  moorish.  The  peasants  are  poorly  lodged,  meagre  in  their 
looks,  mean  in  their  apparel,  and  remarkably  dirty."  The  soil  in 
the  district  around  Stirling  is  described  by  him  as  "poorly  cultiva- 
ted, and  almost  altogether  uninclosed."  But  on  the  margin  of  the 

*  "  New  Statistical  Account." 

t  "  Recreations  of  Christopher  North,'1  vol.  ii.  p.  233. 


336  HISTORY   OF    ENGLAND. 

Clyde,  from  Glasgow  to  Dunbarton,  "  groves  and  meadows  and 
corn  fields  interspersed,"  delight  his  eye.  The  banks  of  Loch 
Lomond  "  display  a  sweet  variety  of  woodland,  corn  field,  and  pas- 
ture." His  own  "  Leven  Water  "  was  "  pastoral  and  delightful  " 
then,  as  it  still  remains.  He  goes  to  Inverary.  In  Argyleshire 
he  sees  "hardly  any  signs  of  cultivation,  or  even  of  population ;  " 
but  "  a  margin  of  plain  ground,  spread  along  the  sea-side,  is  well 
inhabited,  and  improved  by  the  arts  of  husbandry."  Of  this  vast 
Highland  district  it  is  now  computed  that  more  than  three  hundred 
thousand  acres  are  cultivated.  But  eighty  years  ago,  to  speak  of* 
the  cultivation  of  the  Highlands  would  be  to  describe  a  region  in 
which  agriculture  was  despised ;  where  the  mountaineers  chiefly 
confided  in  the  spontaneous  bounty  of  nature,  which  gave  them 
fish  in  the  streams,  and  fowl  in  the  heather,  and  rare  patches  of 
pasture  for  a  few  black  cattle.  Smollett  says  that  "  the  granaries 
of  Scotland  are  the  banks  of  the  Tweed,  the  counties  of  East  and 
Mid  Lothian,  the  Carse  of  Gowrie,  and  some  tracts  in  Aberdeen- 
shire  and  Moray."  The  Carse  of  Gowrie  maintains  its  ancient 
reputation  as  "  the  garden  of  Scotland."  But  other  parts  of  Perth- 
shire have  witnessed  great  changes.  The  graziers  of  the  lowland 
districts  no  longer  quit  their  little  farms  to  drive  their  cattle  to 
shealings  on  the  hills  to  graze  during  the  summer,  the  men  fishing 
and  hunting  whilst  the  women  tend  the  cows  and  spin.*  The 
Highlanders  no  longer  come  down  to  the  cattle  markets  at  Crieff, 
and  take  unceremonious  possession  of  the  fire-sides  and  beds  of 
the  country  people. f  The  tenantry  of  certain  districts  are  no 
longer  compelled,  as  one  of  the  modes  of  feudal  slavery,  to  grind 
their  corn  at  the  lord's  mill,  and  shoe  their  horses  at  the  lord's 
forge.  The  whole  system  of  cultivation  in  parts  of  Perthshire 
may  be  taken  as  a  fair  sample  of  the  mode  in  which  the  cultivation 
of  a  large  portion  of  Scotland  was  proceeding  long  after  the  middle 
of  the  last  century.  The  farms  lay  in  what  was  termed  "  runrig," 
consisting  of  "  infield,"  upon  which  all  the  manure  was  laid,  and 
"outfield,"  occasionally  cropped,  and  then  consigned  to  common 
pasture,  if  any  feed  could  be  got  off  it.  There  was  no  wheat,  or 
artificial  grass,  or  potatoes,  or  winter  turnips.  There  were  no 
separate  farms ;  the  cultivators  lived  in  hamlets,  upon  the  ancient 
principle  of  mutual  protection.  Tully  Veolan  exhibits  a  lively  pic- 
ture of  such  a  hamlet : — the  garden  where  the  gigantic  kale  was 
encircled  by  groves  of  nettles  ;  the  common  field  where  the  joint 
labour  of  the  villagers  cultivated  alternate  ridges  and  patches  of 
rye,  oats,  barley,  and  peas  ;  the  miserable  wigwam  behind  some 

*  "  New  Statistical  Account,"  vol.  x.  Perth,  p.  556.  t  Ibid.,  p.  270. 


AGRICULTURAL  STATE  OF  IRELAND.  .        337 

favoured  cottage,  where  the  wealthy  might  perhaps  shelter  a  starved 
cow  or  sorely-galled  horse  :  the  stack  of  turf  on  one  side  the  door, 
and  the  family  dunghill  on  the  other.*  In  such  a  village,  hand- 
labour  did  more  than  the  plough  ;  but  when  that  cumbrous  instru- 
ment was  used,  it  barely  scratched  the  soil,  without  turning  it  over- 
Sledges  were  employed  instead  of  carts.  It  is  unnecessary  to 
point  out  the  contrast  of  a  period  half  a  century  later  ;  especially 
in  the  more  remote  districts  of  the  North  of  Scotland,  in  which 
the  country  has  been  made  accessible  by  roads,  water  communica- 
tion, and  railways,  and  its  cultivation  has  no  longer  to  struggle  with 
other  impediments  than  those  of  soil  and  climate.  The  climate  itself 
has  been  ameliorated  by  judicious  planting.  Johnson  was  abused 
for  dwelling  on  the  bareness  of  the  country,Fife  in  particular,  through 
which  he  passed  in  his  "Journey."  Boswell,  in  defending  him, 
says,  "let  any  traveller  observe  how  many  trees,  which  deserve 
the  name,  he  can  see  from  Berwick  to  Aberdeen."  There  is  now 
scarcely  a  parish  in  Fifeshire,  described  in  the  "  New  Statistical 
Account,"  in  which  there  is  not  mention  of  extensive  plantations 
which,  "  instead  of  presenting  to  the  eye  a  naked  and  barren  land 
scape,- enliven  with  verdure  our  higher  grounds."  At  Inverary 
there  are  noble  trees,  planted  in  1746  by  Archibald,  duke  of  Argyle  ; 
the  plantations  were  extended  in  1771  ;  but  within  the  last  quarter 
of  a  century  plantation  has  gone  on  at  the  rate  of  half  a  million  of 
oak  and  fir  trees  in  five  years. f  In  an  interesting  paper  upon 
Moray  it  is  truly  said,  with  reference  to  cultivation,  "  The  change 
which  a  single  century  has  wrought  in  Northern  Scotland  can 
hardly  be  exaggerated."  { 

The  remarkable  powers  of  observation  possessed  by  Arthur 
Young  are  signally  displayed  in  his  "  Tour  in  Ireland,"  made  in 
the  years  1776  to  1779.  In  1779  lord  North  saw  the  necessity  of 
yielding  to  the  national  spirit  which  Grattan  had  evoked,  and  he 
carried  three  Bills  for  the  relief  of  the  commerce  of  Ireland.§ 
The  tillage  and  grazing  of  that  country  had  been  long  impeded  by 
prohibitory  laws,  which  prevented  the  importation  of  black  cattle 
to  England,  and  which  discountenanced  the  woollen  manufacture, 
and  consequently  discouraged  the  breeding  of  sheep.  The  monop- 
olizing spirit  of  jobbery  went  so  far  in  1759,  tnat  a  Bil1  of  the  Irish 
Parliament  for  restricting  the  importation  into  Ireland  of  damaged 
flour  was  thrown  out  in  England,  at  the  instigation  of  a  miller  of 
Chichester.  The  natural  fertility  of  Ireland,  and  her  consequent 

*  "  Waverley."  t  "  New  Statistical  Account,"  vol.  vii.  Argyleshire,  p.  14. 

t  "  Westminster  Review,"  vol.  xiii.  p. 9'-  5  Ante,  vol.  vi.  p.  a/3- 

VOL.    VI.— 22. 


338  HISTORY   OF   ENGLAND. 

advantages  in  carrying  her  agriculture  to  perfection,  are  shown  by 
Arthur  Young  to  be  very  great — a  fertility  superior  to  that  of  Eng- 
land, taking  acre  for  acre.  But  the  capital  and  skill  that  had  made 
England  what  it  was,  even  eighty  years  ago,  were  wanting  in  Ire- 
land. Amongst  the  greatest  evils  were  the  "middlemen."  "  The 
very  idea,"  says  Young,  "  as  well  as  the  practice,  of  permitting  a 
tenant  to  relet  at  a  profit  rent,  seems  confined  to  the  distant  and 
unimproved  parts  of  every  empire."  *  It  had  entirely  gone  out  in 
the  highly  cultivated  counties  of  England  ;  in  Scotland  it  had  con- 
tinued to  be  very  common.  The  class  of  Irish  middlemen  has 
been  familiarized  to  us  by  the  admirable  pictures  of  Maria  Edge- 
worth.  Young  describes  them  as  screwing  up  the  rent  to  the  utter- 
most farthing,  and  relentless  in  the  collection  of  it — the  hardest 
drinkers  in  Ireland — masters  of  packs  of  wretched  hounds,  with 
which  they  wasted  their  time  and  their  money.  But  whether  the 
tenantry  of  Ireland  were  miserable  cottars,  or  "  the  largest  gra- 
ziers and  cow-keepers  in  the  world,"  all  were  "the  most  errant  slov- 
ens." In  the  arable  counties  the  capital  employed  upon  a  given 
amount  of  land  would  not  be  a  third  of  that  of  an  English  farmer  ; 
hence  "their  manuring  is  trivial,  their  tackle  and  implements 
wretched,  their  teams  weak,  their  profits  small."  Wonderful  as  it 
may  appear,  the  "  barbarous  custom  "  denounced  by  the  statute  of 
the  loth  and  nth  of  Charles  II.,  of  ploughing,  harrowing,  drawing, 
and  working  with  horses,  by  the  tail,  was  not  exploded  at  Castle- 
bar  and  other  places.  In  the  mountainous  tracts  Arthur  Young 
saw  instances  of  greater  industry  than  in  any  other  part  of  Ireland  ; 
for  the  little  occupiers,  who  could  obtain  leases  of  a  mountain  side, 
made  exertions  in  improvement.  The  cottar  system  of  labour  re- 
sembled what  had  then  recently  prevailed  in  Scotland,  and  which 
was  probably  the  same  all  over  Europe  before  arts  and  commerce 
changed  the  face  of  it.  "  The  recompense  for  labour  is  the  means 
of  living.  In  England  these  are  dispensed  in  money,  but  in  Ire- 
land in  land  or  commodities."  The  shrewd  agricultural  observer 
weighs  the  comparative  advantages  for  the  poor  family,  of  pay- 
ment in  land,  to  produce  potatoes  and  milk,  or  of  a  money  payment. 
He  seems  to  decide  for  the  plentiful  supply  of  food,  although  the 
mud  hovel  of  one  room  may  blind  the  family  with  its  smoke,  and 
the  clothing  be  so  ragged  that  a  stranger  is  impressed  with  the  idea 
of  universal  poverty.  "  The  sparingness  with  which  our  English 
labourer  eats  his  bread  and  cheese  is  well  known.  Mark  the  Irish- 
man's potatoe-bowl  placed  on  the  floor,  the  whole  family  on  their 
hams  around  it,  devouring  a  quantity  almost  incredible  ;  the  beggar 

*  Young — "Tour in  Ireland,"  vol.  ii.  p.  329. 


THE     POTATO    CULTIVATION.  339 

seating  himself  to  it  with  a  hearty  welcome,  the  pig  taking  his 
share  as  readily  as  the  wife,  the  cocks,  hens,  turkeys,  geese, -the 
cur,  the  cat, — and  all  partaking  of  the  same  dish."  *  We  now  know 
what  was  the  terrible  end  of  this  rude  abundance  of  one  species  ot 
food,  produced  upon  smallholdings,  of  which,  in  1847,  500,000  acres 
maintained  300,000  families  ;  whilst  in  England  one  labourer  was 
employed  to  about  fifteen  acres  of  arable  land .  The  abuse  of  the 
right  of  property  in  land,  which  went  on  for  more  than  half  a  cen- 
tury, in  allowing  the  landlords  to  consume  the  whole  produce  of 
the  soil  minus  the  potatoes, \  resulted  in  that  visitation  which  was 
regarded  by  the  Society  of  Friends  in  Ireland  as  "a  means  permit- 
ted by  an  all-wise  Providence  to  exhibit  more  strikingly  the  un- 
sound state  of  our  social  condition."  Arthur  Young  did  not  antici- 
pate the  frightful  climax  of  the  almost  exclusive  potato  cultivation. 
He  saw  a  population  under  three  millions.  He  could  not  antici- 
pate what  would  be  the  result,  when  that  population  was  more  than 
doubled,  without  an  adequate  improvement  in  the  cultivation  of  the 
land,  and  a  more  equal  distribution  of  its  produce  amongst  the 
great  body  of  the  miserable  cultivators. 

'-'  "•  Tour  in  Ireland,"  vol.  ii.  p.  118. 

+  John  Mill — "  Political  Economy,"  r«l.  ii. 


340  HISTORY   OF   ENGLAND. 


CHAPTER  XIX. 

Revolution  in  the  peaceful  Arts. — Great  captains  of  Industry  raised  up  in  Britain. — The 
duke  of  Bridgewater  and  Brindley. — Canals  first  constructed  in  England. — The 
Cotton  manufacture. — The  fly-shuttle  of  Kay. — Cotton-spinning  machines. — The 
spinning-jenny  of  Hargreaves. — Cotton  spinning  ceasing  to  be  a  domestic  employ- 
ment.— Richard  Arkwright. — His  water-frame  spinning  machine. — The  first  water 
spinning  mill. — Samuel  Crompton. — His  Hall-in-the-Wood  wheel, known  as  the  mule 
— General  rush  to  engage  in  spinning  cotton. — Rapid  increase  of  Lancashire  towns. — 
Dr.  Cartwright. — His  power-loom. — Dr.  R-oebuck. — First  furnace  at  Carron  for 
smelting  iron  by  pit-coal. — Wedgwood. — Potteries  of  Staffordshire- — Commercial 
treaty  with  France. — Watt. — Progress  of  his  improved  steam-engine. — Its  final  suc- 
cess. 

IN  the  last  year  of  the  reign  of  George  the  Second,  and  in 
a  few  years  after  the  accession  of  George  the  Third,  there  was 
begun  in  this  country  an  enormous  revolution  in  the  Arts,  for  ac- 
complishing which  Providence  raised  up  very  special  instruments. 
The  great  designs  of  Superior  Beneficence  may  be  as  readily 
traced  in  the  formation  of  minds  which  are  destined  to  effect 
mighty  changes  in  social  organization  by  what  may  seem  humble 
labours,  as  in  the  permission  given  to  lawgivers  and  warriors  to 
operate  upon  the  destinies  of  nations  by  more  direct  exercises  of 
power.  The  revolution  in  the  peaceful  Arts  in  the  middle  of  the 
eighteenth  century  in  Britain,  which  was  commenced  and  carried 
forward  in  various  directions  by  a  knot  of  men  not  greater  in 
number  than  the  mythical  Seven  Champions  of  Christendom,  ex- 
hibited an  unequalled  series  of  bloodless  triumphs  over  physical 
and  moral  obstacles,  and  produced  immediate  and  still  developing 
results,  which  have  raised  this  little  band  to  the  unquestioned 
honour  of  being  the  great  Captains  and  Champions  of  Modern 
Industry.  During  less  than  half  a  century,  the  labours  of  these 
men  had  increased  the  resources  of  their  country  to  an  extent 
which  chiefly  enabled  it  to  sustain  the  pressure  of  the  most  tremen- 
dous war  in  which  it  ever  was  engaged ;  had  bestowed  upon  a 
population  increasing  beyond  all  previous  example  abundant  op- 
portunities of  profitable  labour ;  and  had  opened  new  and  unlimited 
fields  of  production,  for  the  multiplication  and  diffusion  of  the 
necessaries  of  life  and  of  the  comforts  and  refinements  of  civiliza- 
tion. Whilst  tracing  the  individual  course  of  these  remarkable 
contemporaries,  we  cannot  fail  to  perceive  what  an  intimate  con- 


DUKE   OF   BRIDGEWATER.  241 

nection  of  apparently  diverging  purposes  existed  between  each 
and  all,— how,  whilst  Brindley,  Arkwright,  Crompton,  Cartwright, 
Roebuck,  Wedgwood,  and,  greatest  of  all,  Watt,  each  pursued\is 
one  absorbing  object,  there  was  a  natural  harmony  in  their  labours, 
— how  no  one  attempt  could  have  been  carried  to  perfection  with- 
out the  aid  of  another  effort,  differing  in  degree  but  the  same  in 
kind. 

In  the  old  timbered  manor-house  of  Worsley,  about  six  or 
seven  miles  from  Manchester,  there  were  three  men,  in  1758,  daily 
occupied  in  discussing  one  of  the  boldest  schemes  of  public  im- 
provement that  had  ever  been  devised  by  associated  or  private  en- 
terprise. One  of  these  men  was  Francis  Egerton,  third  duke  of 
Bridgewater.  He  was  in  his  twenty-second  year.  Of  weak  health 
as  a  boy,  his  education  had  been  neglected  ;  but  he  had  travelled, 
and  had  seen  much  of  the  unsatisfactory  pleasures  of  the  life  of 
London,  at  a  period  somewhat  notorious  for  the  dissolute  manners 
of  the  great.  He  had  endured  a  matrimonial  disappointment,  and 
had  retired  to  this  one  of  his  family  estates,  to  pursue  a  course  of 
the  strictest  economy,  and  to  devise  plans  for  the  improvement  of 
his  fortune,  by  making  his  encumbered  property  more  productive. 
The  estate  of  Worsley  contained  a  rich  bed  of  coal,  but  it  was 
comparatively  valueless.  Within  an  easy  distance  was  the  great 
town  of  Manchester,  and  its  suburbs,  with  a  population  of  about 
40,000,  ready  to  welcome  an  additional  supply  of  fuel  for  domestic 
and  manufacturing  uses.  But  Worsley  and  its  neighbourhood  could 
not  supply  coal  so  cheaply  by  land  carriage  as  the  pits  on  the 
other  side  of  the  town.  Liverpool,  also,  offered  a  vast  market,  if 
coal  could  be  cheaply  conveyed  thither  from  Manchester ;  but  the 
water  carriage  was  twelve  shillings  per  ton,  and  the  land  carriage 
was  two  pounds  per  ton.  Could  these  difficulties  be  surmounted  ? 
Could  a  canal  be  constructed  from  Worsley  to  Manchester? 
Might  the  line  not  be  extended  to  the  Mersey  ?  Such  were  the 
ideas  that  pressed  upon  the  inquiring  mind  of  the  young  nobleman 
in  his  self-enforced  solitude.  There  was  a  neighbouring  canal  in 
course  of  construction,  which  arose  out  of  an  Act  passed  in  1755 
for  making  the  Sankey-Brook  navigable,  and  finally  a  canal  was 
opened  in  1760,  following  the  course  of  the  stream.  It  was  a 
work  in  which  the  country  through  which  it  passed  presented 
few  difficulties.  But  the  duke  of  Bridgewater  had  grander  views. 
He  would  adopt  a  line  which  should  render  locks  unnecessary 
— which  should  cross  rivers  and  cut  through  hills,  like  the  rail- 
way-works of  our  own  time.  The  duke  had  made  two  energetic 
men  the  confidential  participators  in  his  schemes.  One  was  John 


342 


HISTORY   OF   ENGLAND. 


Gilbert,  a  land  agent,  who  had  been  engaged  in  mining  speculations  •, 
and  who  was  especially  useful  in  raising  money  to  carry  on  the 
projected  operations.  The  other  was  James  Brindley,  a  millwright, 
—almost  without  the  rudiments  of  education,  and  totally  deficient 
in  scientific  training.  This  extraordinary  man,  the  greatest  civil 
engineer  that  had  appeared  in  England  before  the  present  century 
one  whose  constructive  genius  enabled  him  to  overcome  difficul- 
ties which  appeared  insuperable  to  other  engineers  of  more  techni- 
cal pretensions — was  twenty  years  older  than  his  adventurous 
employer.  He  had  effected  some  Improvements  in  machinery, 
and  had  obtained  a  small  provincial  reputation.  But  when  the  pro- 
fessional men  and  the  general  public  looked  upon  stupendous 
mounds  of  earth  raised  in  deep  valleys,  and  heard  of  an  aqueduct 
to  be  carried  over  the  Irwell,  high  enough  for  masted  vessels  to 
sail  under  it — when  they  inquired  whence  the  supply  of  water  was 
to  be  drawn  to  fill  a  canal  of  nine  miles  in  length — they  came  to 
the  conclusion  that  tho  duke  and  his  engineer  were  equally  mad, 
and  that  the  project  would  end  in  total  ruin.  We  have  now  become 
familiar  with  engineering  difficulties  far  more  vast ;  and  can  there- 
fore scarcely  forbear  to  smile  at  such  forebodings.  The  aqueduct 
at  Barton  was  opened  in  1761.  It  has  been  said  that  when  the 
moment  arrived  for  admitting  the  water  into  this  aqueduct, 
"  Brindley's  nerve  was  unequal  to  the  interest  of  the  crisis,  that  he 
ran  away  and  hid  himself,  while  Gilbert  remained  cool  and  col- 
lected to  superintend  the  operation  which  was  to  confirm  or  confute 
the  clamour  with  which  the  project  had  been  assailed."* 

The  subterranean  canals  in  the  coal-works  at  Worsley  were  as 
remarkable  as  the  canal  itself  and  its  branches.  The  open  works, 
all  of  one  level,  extended  thirty-eight  miles  ;  the  tunnels  were 
originally  about  a  mile  and  a  half  in  length,  although  they  now 
extend  forty-two  miles,  of  which  two-thirds  have  gone  out  of  use. 
When  the  works,  above  ground  and  under  ground,  were  finished  in 
1762,  they  were  described  as  "the  greatest  artificial  curiosity  in  the 
world."  f  The  immediate  effect  of  the  duke  of  Bridgewater's  first 
great  undertaking  was  sufficiently  demonstrative  of  the  public 
value  of  canals.  The  price  of  coals  in  Manchester  was  reduced 
one  half  after  its  completion.  The  duke  and  his  brother-in-law, 
the  first  marquis  of  Stafford,  were  the  chief  promoters  of  the  Grand 
Trunk  Navigation,  generally  known  as  the  Staffordshire  Canal ; 
and  Brindley  was  the  engineer.  This  work  brought  the  iron  and 

'  "  Quarterly  Review,"  vol.  Ixxiii.  p.  311— a  delightful  paper  by  the  late  earl  of  Elles- 
mere. 

f  Kippis  ;  "  Biographia  Britannica,"  art.  Brindley. 


THE   CANAL   SYSTEM. 


343 


pottery  districts  into  easy  communication  with  the  Mersey  and  the 
Trent.  A  letter  dated  from  Burslem,  in  1767,  contains  an  interest- 
ing notice  of  the  engineer :  "  Gentlemen  come  to  view  our  eighth 
wonder  of  the  world,  the  subterraneous  navigation,  which  is  cutting 
by  the  great  Mr.  Brindley,  who  handles  rocks  as  easily  as  you 
would  plum-pies,  and  makes  the  four  elements  subservient  to  his 
will.  He  is  as  plain  a  looking  man  as  one  of  the  boors  of  the 
Peak,  or  one  of  his  own  carters  ;  but  when  he  speaks,  all  ears  listen, 
and  every  mind  is  filled  with  wonder  at  the  things  he  pronounces 
to  be  practicable."  *  Brindley  did  not  live  to  complete  the  Grand 
Trunk.  But  this,  and  concurrent  undertakings  which  he  designed 
or  superintended,  connected  the  Thames,  the  Humber,  the  Severn, 
and  the  Mersey,  and  united  London,  Liverpool,  Bristol,  and  Hull, 
by  water  communication,  passing  through  a  district  unsurpassed  in 
natural  resources  and  productive  industry. 

Fourteen  years  after  the  duke  of  Bridgewater  had  established 
his  claim  to  be  called  "  the  father  of  British  inland  navigation,"  the 
eventual  success  of  these  undertakings  was  regarded  somewhat 
doubtfully :  "  Canals  for  carrying  on  inland  navigation  are  new,  and 
lately  introduced,  so  as  not  to  warrant  great  commendations ;  but 
the  prospect  is  fair."  Again :  "  What  the  actual  advantages  that 
will  be  derived  from  these  canals,  when  finished,  may  be,  time  and 
experience  only  can  determine. "f  In  1794,  the  extent  of  canal 
speculation  produced  the  inevitable  protest  against  "  bold  and  pre- 
carious adventure."  There  were  the  same  rivalries  of  competing 
lines  as  we  have  seen  in  railways,  and  the  same  losses  and  disap- 
pointments. Yet  the  grandeur  of  these  works  excited  the  admira- 
tion even  of  those  who  doubted  their  eventual  profit.  "  At  the 
beginning  of  this  century,  it  was  thought  a  most  arduous  task  to 
make  a  high  road  for  carriages  over  the  hills  and  moors  which 
separate  Yorkshire  from  Lancashire,  and  now  they  are  pierced 
through  by  three  navigable  canals."  $ 

The  local  historian  of  Manchester,  who  thus  looks  with  a  mix- 
ture of  apprehension  and  of  wonder  at  canal  enterprise,  says, 
"  Nothing  but  highly  flourishing  manufactures  can  repay  the  vast 
expense  of  these  designs."  He  adds,  as  if  to  enforce  his  doubt, 
that  when  the  plans  under  execution  are  finished,  Manchester  "  will 
probably  enjoy  more  various  water  communications  than  the  most 
commercial  town  of  the  Low  Countries  has  ever  done."  §  The 
principal  cause  of  this  sudden  increase  to  the  power  of  cheap  car- 

*  Kippis  ;  "  Biographia  Britannica,"  art.  Brindley,  p.  601. 

t  Campbell's  "  Political  Survey,"  vol.  ii.  p.  261  &  p.  265. 

t  Aikin's  "  Manchester,"  1795,  p.  137-  $  MM,  p.  137- 


344  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

riage  possessed  by  Manchester, — a  power  greater  than  that  which 
made  the  prosperity  of  Ghent  and  Bruges, — was,  that  within  a 
quarter  of  a  century  it  had  become  the  Metropolis  of  Cotton, — the 
centre  of  that  manufacture  which,  from  very  small  beginnings,  had 
grown  into  proportions  then  deemed  gigantic,  however  dwarf-like 
they  may  appear  in  comparison  with  its  present  developement. 
The  population,  busy  in  the  middle  of  the  eighteenth  century  with 
"  small  things  called  Manchester  ware,"  had  passed  away.*  Wag- 
gons had  driven  out  pack-horses  for  the  conveyance  of  goods. 
Canals  had  come,  in  great  part,  to  supersede  waggons.  But  the 
Manchester  merchant  still  sent  out  his  "  riders  "  with  patterns  in 
their  saddle-bags ;  and  the  manufacturer  did  not  disdain  to  mix 
with  the  humbler  tradesman  in  a  common  public-house,  to  take  his 
glass  of  punch,  and  hear  the  news  of  the  town.  There  was  such  a 
house  of  great  resort  in  the  market-place,  which  had  been  kept  by 
the  same  landlord  for  half  a  century  :  "  It  is  not  unworthy  of  re- 
mark, and  to  a  stranger  is  very  extraordinary,  that  merchants  of  the 
first  fortunes  quit  the  elegant  drawing-room,  to  sit  in  a  small  dark 
dungeon,  for  this  house  cannot  with  propriety  be  called  by  a  better 
name  ;  but  such  is  the  force  of  long-established  custom."f 

It  is  asserted  in  a  pamphlet  published  in  1788,  that  "not  above 
twenty  years  before  that  timt,  the  whole  cotton  trade  of  Great 
Britain  did  not  return  ^200,000  to  the  country  for  the  raw  mate- 
rials, combined  with  the  labour  of  the  people."  %  This  calculation 
takes  us  back  to  the  period  at  which  was  invented  the  hand-machine 
for  spinning  cotton,  termed  "  a  jenny."  A  previous  invention  in 
the  process  of  weaving  stimulated  the  mechanical  attempts  for  in- 
creasing the  quantity  of  yarn  to  be  woven.  About  1 760,  the  cotton 
weavers  began  to  use  a  simple  but  efficacious  plan  of  throwing  the 
shuttle,  introduced  by  John  Kay,  of  Bury,  "  which  enabled  the 
weaver  to  make  twice  as  much  cloth  as  he  made  before."  This 
was  called  "the  fly-shuttle."  The  greater  speed  attained  in  the 
weaving  process,  "  destroyed  the  arrangement  which  up  to  that 
time  existed  between  the  quantity  of  yarn  spun  and  the  weavers' 
demand  for  it."  §  John  Kay  was  subsequently  "  mobbed  out  of  the 
country,  and  died  in  obscurity  in  a  foreign  land."  This  was  prob- 
ably in  consequence  of  some  further  invention  to  supply  the  place 
of  hand-labour  in  spinning  wool,  to  which  the  fly-shuttle  was  orig- 
inally applied.  Dyer,  in  his  poem  of  "The  Fleece,"  published  in 
1757,  having  noticed  the  spinning-wheel,  the  distaff,  and  wheels, 
"  double  spoled,  which  yield  to  either  hand  a  several  line,"  says 
that  "  patient  art. 

*  Ante,  vol.  iv.  p,  410.  t  Aikin,  p.  189.  $  Ibid.,  p.  178. 

§  "  Life  of  Samuel  Crompton,"  zd  edition,  1860,  p.  20 


COTTON    SPINNING   MACHINE.  345 

"  Sagacious,  has  a  spiral  engine  formed, 
Which,  on  an  hundred  spoies,  an  hundred  threads, 
With   one  huge  wheel,  by  lapse  of  water,  twines."  * 

The  writer  of  a  very  able  article  on  "  Cotton-spinning  machines  " 
implies  that  this  was  supposed  to  be  a  spinning  machine,  introduced 
into  Yorkshire  by  John  Kay.f  Robert  Anderson,  the  editor  of  the 
valuable  edition  of  "British  Poets"  published  in  1795,  appends 
this  note  to  the  passage  in  "  The  Fleece  :  " — "  Paul's  engine  for 
cotton  and  fine  wool."  Lewis  Paul,  in  1738,  took  out  a  patent  for 
a  machine  "  for  the  spinning  of  wool  and  cotton  in  a  manner  entirely 
new."  Several  attempts  were  made  to  work  this  machine,  persons 
of  some  note  being  concerned  in  the  speculation,  amongst  others, 
Edward  Cave,  the  proprietor  of  "  The  Gentleman's  Magazine." 
But  Paul's  machine,  however  ingenious,  brought  losses  upon  all  con- 
cerned in  it,  and  was  finally  abandoned.  The  demand  for  fine  yarn 
still  went  on  unsupplied ;  and  it  was  increased  by  a  growing  mar- 
ket for  fabrics  in  which  it  was  endeavoured  to  compete  with  Indian 
muslins.  An  extensive  manufacture  of  fabrics  composed  wholly  of 
cotton  does  not  appear  to  have  been  contemplated  a  few  years 
before  this  period.  "  Bombaya's  wharfs,"  writes  Dyer,  "  pile  up 

"  Wool-resembling  cotton,  shorn  from  trees, 
Not  to  the  fleece  unfriendly ;  whether  mixed 
In  warp  or  woof,  or  with  the  line  of  flax, 
Or  softer  silk's  material."  J 

The  demand  increased  more  and  more,  and  it  pressed  on  invention 
to  find  modes  of  supply.  In  1764  the  Society  of  Arts  voted  fifty 
pounds  to  Mr.  Harrison  "  for  a  masterly  improvement  in  the  spin- 
ning-wheel, by  which  a  child  may  do  double  the  business  that  even 
a  grown  person  can  with  the  common  wheel."  §  At  length  a  great 
practical  change  was  achieved. 

In  1767,  James  Hargreaves  completed  his  "Spinning-jenny." 
He  was  a  weaver  near  Blackburn,  and  his  wife  and  children  were 
employed  in  spinning  weft  for  him  to  work  upon  at  his  loom,  the 
warp  being  supplied  by  the  wholesale  manufacturers  who  gave  him 
employment.  The  spinster's  machine  in  Hargreaves'  cottage  being 
accidentally  overturned,  it  was  observed  that  the  wheel  and  the  spindle 
continued  to  revolve.  In  the  position  of  the  wheel  on  its  side,  the 
spindle  became  perpendicular.  The  ingenious  man  caught  the  idea, 
and  forthwith  constructed  a  multiplying  wheel,with  eight  rovings  and 
eight  upright  spindles.  He  knew  what  would  be  the  fate  of  a  labour- 

*  Book  iii  t  "  Quarterly  Review,"  vol.  cvii.  p.  S3- 

t  Book  iv.'  §  "  Annual  Register,"  vol.  vii.  p.  66. 


346  HISTORY   OF    ENGLAND. 

saving  inventor  if  he  made  his  discovery  public.  He  long  worked 
in  secret  at  his  "jenny;"  but  such  mysteries  cannot  be  preserved. 
His  jealous  neighbours  broke  into  his  house,  destroyed  his  inven- 
tion, and  compelled  him  to  fly  for  his  life  to  Nottingham.  He 
there  received  assistance  to  enable  him  to  take  out  a  patent ;  but 
he  had  sold  several  of  his  machines  before  the  date  of  his  patent ; 
the  invention  became  common  property ;  and  the  instrument,  sur- 
reptitiously imitated,  was  soon  found  in  every  weaver's  cottage  in 
Lancashire.  Thomas  Highs,  about  the  same  period,  invented  a 
somewhat  similar  hand-machine.  Samuel  Crompton,  the  inventor 
of  the  "mule,"  which  changed  the  whole  course  of  cotton  spinning, 
when  sixteen  years  of  age,  in  1769,  was  spinning  upon  one  of  Har- 
greaves'  machines  of  eight  spindles.* 

The  time  was  fast  approaching  when  the  spinning  of  cotton 
would  cease  to  be  a  domestic  manufacture.  The  weaving  would 
long  continue  under  humble  roofs  ;  but  machines,  driven  at  first 
by  water-power,  would  gradually  banish  the  wheel  and  the  jenny. 
The  double  occupation  of  weaver  and  small  farmer  was  very  com- 
mon in  Lancashire.  This  united  business  was  conducted  with 
small  profit  to  the  yeoman,  who  occupied  a  few  acres,  and  worked 
at  intervals  at  one  loom.  It  was  far  from  advantageous  to  the 
general  interests  of  the  country.  Arthur  Young  described  the 
North  of  Ireland  as  "  a  whole  province  peopled  by  weavers  :  it  is 
they  who  cultivate,  or  rather  beggar,  the  soil,  as  well  as  work  the 
looms ;  agriculture  is  there  in  ruins.  .  .  .  The  lands  are  in- 
finitely subdivided;  no  weaver  thinks  of  supporting  himself  by  his 
loom  ;  he  has  always  a  piece  of  potatoes,  a  piece  of  oats,  a  patch 
of  flax,  and  grass  or  weeds  for  a  cow."  Young  held  the  two  oc- 
cupations to  be  incompatible.  "  A  weaver  who  works  at  a  fine 
cloth  can  never  take  the  plough  or  the  spade  in  hand  without  injury 
to  the  web."  f  The  Lancashire  weavers  had  not  driven  out  the 
farmers  proper,  as  in  the  North  of  Ireland,  but  the  same  system 
was  in  partial  operation  in  the  whole  cotton-working  district.  The 
father  of  Samuel  Crompton  was  the  occupier  of  a  farm  near  Bol- 
ton  ;  he  and  his  family,  "  as  was  the  custom  at  that  time,  employ- 
ing their  leisure  hours  in  carding,  spinning,  and  weaving."  In  1758 
he  became  the  tenant  of  a  portion  of  an  old  mansion,  also  near 
Bolton,  called  Hall-in-the-Wood.  The  father  died  soon  after  this 
removal.  The  widow  continued  the  labours  of  the  little  farm,  and 
devoted  all  her  leisure,  as  before,  to  the  spindle  and  the  loom.J 

*  Ure's  "  Cotton  Manufacture,"  vol.  i.  book  Hi.  chap.  i. 

t  "Tour  in  Ireland,"  vol.  ii.  p.  305. 

t  French  •,  "  Life  of  Crompton,''  chap.  ii. 


RICHARD   ARKWRIGHT.  347 

Bolton  was  then  a  place  of  very  inconsiderable  population.  Their 
wants  were  so  small  that  not  more  than  one  cow  used  to  be  killed 
in  the  town  for  a  week's  supply.  To  the  weekly  market  London 
and  Manchester  traders  resorted,  to  purchase  the  heavy  fabrics 
for  which  Bolton  was  the  chief  mart.  "The  fustians,  herring, 
bones,  cross-overs,  quiltings,  dimities,  and  other  goods,  were  car- 
ried to  market  by  the  small  manufacturers  (who  were  for  the  most 
part  equally  small  farmers)  in  wallets  balanced  over  one  shoulder, 
while  on  the  other  arm  there  was  often  hung  a  basket  of  fresh  but- 
ter."* There  was  one  bustling  man  in  Bolton  who  must  have  been 
among  the  most  active  on  the  market-day — Richard  Arkwright,  the 
barber,  who  had  come  from  Preston,  his  native  place,  and  hung 
out  his  attractive  invitation  to  the  townsman  and  the  visitor,  of 
"a  clean  shave  fora  penny."  But  he  had  higher  aspirations.  He 
was  a  peruke  maker,  and  travelled  about  the  country  as  a  merchant 
in  a  peculiar  line.  An  adroit  man  he  must  have  been,  and  a  pleas- 
ant; for  at  the  statute  fair  he  marked  down  the  lass  with  the  most 
attractive  locks  ;  and  although  he  might  not  have  played  "  with 
the  tangles  of  Neaera's  hair,"  he  contrived  to  possess  himself  of 
the  treasure  for  a  pecuniary  consideration,  and  bear  it  off  to  his 
wig-making  shop  in  whatever  new  locality  he  chose  to  plant  him- 
self for  a  year  or  two.  He  saw  many  men,  and  acquired  many 
valuable  notions.  He  had  a  mechanical  genius,  and  thoughts  of 
"  perpetual  motion  "  sometimes  engrossed  his  mind.  At  Warring- 
ton  he  became  acquainted  with  John  Kay,  a  clock-maker,  the  son 
of  the  fly-shuttle  inventor;  and  the  two  set  their  ingenuity  to  work 
upon  something  likely  to  be  more  practicable  and  more  profitable 
than  "  perpetual  motion."  Kay  had  been  thinking  of  schemes  for 
superseding  the  spinning-wheel,  incited  probably  by  having  been 
employed  by  Thomas  Highs  in  making  the  wheels  and  springs  of 
his  "  jenny."  Out  of  this  communication  of  the  ideas  of  Highs, 
who  is  alleged  to  have  conceived  the  notion  of  spinning  by  rollers, 
was  matured,  by  the  ingenuity  and  perseverance  of  Arkwright,  the 
invention  which  was  very  speedily  to  convert  the  region  which 
Gray  called  "  the  deserts  of  Lancashire  "  into  the  busiest  district 
of  the  world.  Arkwright  went  to  Preston,  and  having  expended 
his  last  shilling  in  completing,  however  imperfectly,  a  machine  of  a 
new  construction,  it  was  exhibited,  in  I768,in  that  town.  In  a  lucky 
hour  for  Arkwright,  murmurs  and  threats  reached  his  ear.  He  hastily 
packed  up  his  apparatus  in  the  dread  of  mob-law  ;  went  to  Notting- 
ham; obtained  two  moneyed  partners,  of  whom  Jedediah  Strutt 
was  one  ;  and  took  out  his  first  patent  in  1769. 

*  Life  of  Crompton,  chap.  ii. 


348  HISTORY   OF    ENGLAND. 

Those  who  look  upon  the  operations  of  a  cotton-factory  of  the 
present  day  may  feel  surprise  that  such  complete  machinery  as 
now  exists,  with  its  wonderful  results,  should  have  grown  out 
of  so  apparently  simple  and  rude  a  machine  as  that  claimed  by 
Arkwright  as  his  design.  But  the  principle  existed  in  that  ma- 
chine, out  of  which  all  the  more  elaborate  contrivances  of  ninety 
yean;  have  proceeded.  "  The  principle  remains  the  same,  name- 
ly, to  enable  rollers  to  do  the  work  of  human  fingers,  with  much 
greater  precision,  and  incomparably  cheaper."  *  The  machines 
of  the  small  factory  at  Nottingham,  which  Arkwright  was  en- 
abled to  establish  with  his  partners,  were  worked  by  horse-power. 
In  1771  a  site  was  selected  by  them  where  water-power  might  be 
applied.  In  the  beautiful  valley  of  the  Derwent,  at  Cromford,  was 
erected  the  first  water-spinning  mill.  Henceforward  the  machine 
was  called  the  water-frame,  and  the  yarn  which  it  produced  was 
called  water-twist.  But  the  great  merit  of  Arkwright,  however 
disputable  his  claim  as  an  inventor,  was  as  an  organizer  of  the 
labour  required  in  a  cotton-factory.  The  mechanics  who  made 
his  machines  had  to  be  formed ;  the  workmen  had  to  be  trained 
to  accommodate  their  irregular  habits  to  automatic  precision.  All 
the  difficulties  that  interpose  between  the  completion  of  an  in- 
vention and  its  commercial  value  had  to  be  overcome  ;  and  but 
for  the  wondrous  energy  of  Arkwright,  his  career  might  have 
been  as  unsuccessful  as  that  of  Lewis  Paul.  "  We  find  that  so 
late  as  the  year  1779,  ten  years  after  the  date  of  his  first  patent, 
his  enterprise  was  regarded  by  many  as  a  doubtful  novelty."f  It 
was  five  years  before  any  profit  was  realised  at  Cromford.  But  in 
the  meantime  Arkwright  had,  in  1775,  taken  out  a  second  patent. 
His  right  to  the  inventions  therein  claimed  was  contested.  His 
monopoly  was  invaded  on  every  side.  Actions  at  law  were  decided 
at  one  time  in  his  favour ;  at  another  time  the  decisions  of  the 
courts  were  adverse.  In  October,  1779,  a  mill  which  he  had  erect- 
ed in  the  neighbourhood  of  Chorley  was  burned  by  a  mob ;  who 
in  a  similar  manner  destroyed  the  cotton-spinning  machines  at  Man* 
Chester,  Wigan,  Blackburn,  Bolton,  and  Preston.  The  Lancashire 
weavers  had  been  reasoned  cut  of  their  opposition  to  the  jenny, 
and  it  was  generally  adopted.  They  abstained  from  destroying  the 
water-frame  only  through  the  terror  of  the  sword  and  the  halter. 
The  combinations  of  rivals  and  the  violence  of  mobs  had  no  power 
to  turn  the  courageous  Arkwright  from  pursuing  the  career  which 
had  (  pcncd  to  his  sanguine  view.  To  the  fullest  measure  of  success 

0  '  Knowledge  is  Power,"  by  Charles  Knight,  p.  219.  Ure,  vol.  i.  p.  237. 


SAMUEL   CROMPTON.  349 

which  could  be  reached  by  indomitable  industry  and  perseverance, 
he  devoted  himself  without  relaxation,  even  when  enormous  wealth 
was  accumulating  around  him.  As  he  rose  into  rank  and  impor- 
tance, he  felt  the  necessity  of  correcting  the  defects  of  his  early 
education  ;  and  after  his  fiftieth  year,  he  applied  two  hours  of  each 
day,  snatched  from  sleep,  to  improve  himself  in  grammar,  orthogra- 
phy and  writing. 

The  career  of  Samuel  Crompton  presents  as  striking  a  contrast 
to  that  of  Richard  Arkwright,  as  the  difference  in  the  characters 
of  the  two  men.  The  orphan  boy  of  Hall-in-the-Wood  was  shy, 
sensitive,  studious,  a  mathematician,  a  musician,  an  inventive  arti-* 
san.  Arkwright  was  pushing,  callous,  ignorant,  unrefined,  without 
originality  in  his  ideas,  but  a  most  skilful  appropriator.  The  bold 
man  died  worth  half  a  million  sterling,  for  he  had  self-confidence, 
tact,  and  knowledge  of  human  character.  The  timid  man  was  easily 
disheartened,  shrinking  from  speculation,  and  easily  deceived.  He 
•  would  have  lived  a  poor  weaver  to  the  end  of  his  days,  unable, 
as  he  said  of  himself,  "  to  contend  with  the  men  of  the  world,"  had 
not  Parliament,  in  1812,  granted  him  a  paltry  compensation  of  5ooo/. 
for  the  great  invention  which  he  "  gave  up  to  the  country,"  as  he 
said,  but  which  he  was  really  cheated  into  giving  up  by  a  host  of 
selfish  manufacturers,  who  made  fortunes  out  of  his  simple  trust 
Crompton  was  spinning  with  Hargreaves'  jenny  four  or  five  years 
after  Arkwright  had  produced  harder  and  finer  yarn  by  his  water- 
frame  than  the  jenny  could  produce,  whatever  amount  it  had  added 
to  the  quantity  spun.  Crompton  saw  what  was  wanting.  With  a 
few  common  tools,  and  a  claspknife,  he  worked  for  five  years  before 
he  perfected  what  was  originallycalled  the  Hall-in-the-Wood  wheel. 
"  The  great  and  important  invention  of  Crompton  was  his  spindle- 
carriage,  and  the  principle  of  the  thread  having  no  strain  upon  it 
until  it  was  completed.  The  carriage  with  the  spindles  could,  by 
the  movement  of  the  hand  and  knee,  recede  just  as  the  rollers  de- 
livered out  the  elongated  thread  in  a  soft  state,  so  that  it  would 
allow  of  a  considerable  stretch  before  the  thread  had  to  encounter 
the  stress  of  winding  on  the  spindle."  *  This  was  "  the  corner- 
stone of  the  merits  of  his  invention,"  which  Crompton  connected 
with  the  system  of  rollers,  and  thus  added  the  second  great  and 
permanent  principle  of  the  machinery  for  cotton-spinning. 

In  1779,  when  this  machine  was  completed  by  the  young  weaver, 
the  riots  broke  out  by  which  Arkwright's  mill  at  Chorley  was  de- 
stroyed. From  the  solitary  room  where  Crompton  had  been  so  long 
working  in  secret,  he  heard  the  shouts  of  a  mob  who  were  breaking 

*  "  Memoir  of  Crompton,"  by  John  Kennedy  ;  quoted  iu  Mr.  French's  "Life." 


35°  HISTORY   OF   ENGLAND. 

to  pieces  a  carding-engine  in  the  adjoining  hamlet  of  Folds.  He 
was  prepared  for  such  an  emergency.  He  had  cut  an  opening  in 
the  ceiling  of  his  room  to  the  loft  above,  which  aperture  he  had 
fitted  with  a  trap-door.  He  hastily  took  his  machine  to  pieces, 
and  hoisted  the  parts  into  the  dark  hole  where  they  were  concealed 
for  many  week.  The  riots  were  put  down,  and  tranquillity  was 
restored ;  but  not  till  after  the  jennies  had  been  destroyed  for 
miles  round  Bolton.  Whilst  working  upon  his  invention  Cromp- 
ton  had  married.  He  took  to  wife  a  young  woman  of  good  family 
and  education,  but  who,  being  left  an  orphan  in  reduced  circum- 
s'tances,  maintained  herself  by  spinning.  The  home  of  the  young 
people  was  in  a  cottage  attached  to  the  Hall-in-the-Wood  ;  and  in  a- 
room  of  the  old  mansion  they  secretly  worked  on  the  now-perfected 
mule.  No  yarn  comparable  for  fineness  and  firmness  had  ever  been 
produced  as  that  which  Crompton  carried  to  the  Bolton  market,  ob- 
taining a  proportional  price.  People  began  to  think  that  there  was 
some  mystery.  Fingers  could  not  produce  such  yarn  ;  nor  could  the 
jenny.  Manufacturers  gathered  round,  some  to  buy,  others  to 
endeavour  to  penetrate  the  secret.  They  in  vain  tried  to  obtain 
admission  to  the  old  house.  They  climbed  up  to  the  windows  to 
look  in.  The  bewildered  man  soon  saw  that  it  would  be  impossible 
to  keep  his  secret.  In  a  manuscript  which  he  left  behind  him,  he 
says,  of  this  anxious  period,  "  during  this  time  I  married,  and 
commenced  spinner  altogether.  But  a  few  months  reduced  me  to 
the  cruel  necessity  either  of  destroying  my  machine  altogether,  or 
giving  it  up  to  the  public.  To  destroy  it  I  could  not  think  of  ;  to 
give  up  that  for  which  I  had  laboured  so  long  was  cruel.  I  had  no 
patent,  nor  the  means  of  purchasing  one.  In  preference  to  de- 
stroying it,  I  gave  it  to  the  public."  Manufacturers  had  come  about 
him  with  tempting  promises,  and  had  persuaded  him  to  give  up  his 
secret,  upon  the  condition,  recited  in  a  formal  document,  of  sub- 
scribing sums  to  be  affixed  to  the  name  of  each  "  as  a  reward  for 
his  improvement  in  spinning."  The  whole  sum  they  subscribed 
was  67/.  6s.  6d.  The  subscription  paper  is  in  existence.  "  The 
list  is  curiously  interesting  as  containing  among  the  half-guinea 
subscribers  the  names  of  many  Bolton  firms  now  of  great  wealth 
and  eminence  as  mule  spinners,  whose  colossal  fortunes  may  be 
said  to  have  been  based  upon  this  singularly  small  investment."  * 
In  five  years  Crompton's  "mule  "  was  the  machine  chiefly  employed 
for  fine  spinning,  not  only  round  Bolton,  but  in  the  manufactur- 
ing districts  of  England,  Scotland,  and  Ireland. 

*  French.     "  Life  of  Samuel  Crompton,"  p.  72,  from  which  interesting  volume  w« 
derive  the  facts  thus  briefly  related  by  us. 


RAPID   INCREASE   OF    LANCASHIRE   TOWNS.  35 1 

The  common  piracies  of  Arkwright's  water-frame,  its  more  ex- 
tensive  use  when  the  patent  expired  in  1784,  and  the  general  appro- 
priation of  Crompton's  mule,  very  soon  changed  the  neighbourhood 
of  which  Manchester  was  the  centre,  from  a  country  of  small  far- 
mers into  a  country  of  small  manufacturers.  Houses  on  the  banks 
of  streams  whose  currents  would  drive  a  wheel  and  shaft  were 
greedily  seized  upon.  Sheds  were  run  up  in  similar  situations. 
The  clank  of  wheels  and  the  buzz  of  spindles  were  heard  in  once 
solitary  places  upon  the  branches  of  the  Irwell.  The  smaller 
streams  that  flowed  from  the  barren  hills  into  secluded  valleys,  might 
be  apostrophized  in  the  lines  of  Ebenezer  Elliott : 

"  Beautiful  rivers  of  the  desert !  ye 
Bring  food  for  labour  from  the  foodless  waste. " 

Crompton's  mules,  worked  by  hand,  "were  erected  in  garrets  or 
lofts  ;  and  many  a  dilapidated  barn  or  cow-house  was  patched  up 
in  the  walls,  repaired  in  the  roof,  and  provided  with  windows,  to 
serve  as  lodging  room  for  the  new  muslin  wheels."  *  Amidst  this 
hurried  system  of  expedients  to  obtain  the  gains  of  cotton-spinnino-, 
these  small  factories  were  supplied  with  the  labour  of  children  by 
a  mode  which  excited  the  indignation  of  all  right-thinking  persons. 
Children  of  very  tender  age,  collected  from  the  London  workhouses, 
and  other  abodes  of  the  friendless,  were  transported  to  Manches- 
ter and  the  neighbourhood  as  apprentices.  These  were  often  worked 
through  the  whole  night ;  had  no  regard  paid  to  their  cleanliness  ; 
and  received  no  instruction.  Aikin,  who  records  these  grievances, 
adds  that  in  many  factories,  remedies  had  been  adopted.  It  was 
forty  years  before  the  Legislature  effectually  interfered  to  protect 
factory  children. 

A  greater  change  than  that  produced  by  the  water-frame  and 
the  mule  was  impending.  The  period  was  quickly  approaching 
when  the  tall  stalk  would  start  up  in  the  bye-streets  of  quiet  towns, 
and  gather  around  its  clouds  of  smoke  a  new  population.  Of  Bol- 
ton, whose  inhabitants  had  more  than  doubled  from  1783  to  1789, 
it  is  recorded  that  "  the  want  of  water  in  this  district  is  made  up 
by  the  ingenious  invention  of  the  machines  called  mules."  f  The 
want  of  water  would  in  a  few  years  be  made  up  by  a  far  more 
manageable  power.  Bury  had  its  "  cotton  manufacture,  originally 
brought  from  Bolton,"  with  "  factories  ei  ected  upon  the  rivers  and 
many  brooks  within  the  parish."  {  Its  population  had  increased 
in  a  larger  proportion  than  that  of  Bolton  ;  but  the  increase  would 
be  far  more  rapid  when  the  rivers  and  brooks  were  no  longer  es- 

*  French,  p.  76.  t  Aikin,  p.  262.  J  ftitf;  P-  267. 


352  HISTORY   OF    ENGLAND. 

sential  for  the  movement  of  rollers  and  spindles.  In  1794  some 
small  steam-engines,  made  by  Mr.  Sherrard,  a  very  ingenious  and 
able  engineer,  had  begun  in  Manchester  to  be  "  used  in  cotton- 
mills,  and  for  every  purpose  of  the  water-wheel,  where  a  stream  is 
not  to  be  got."  This  local  manufacture  of  steam-engines  was  be- 
ginning to  encounter  a  formidable  rivalry :  "  Some  few  were  also 
erected  in  this  neighborhood  by  Messrs.  Bolton  and  Watts,  of  Bir- 
mingham, who  have  far  excelled  all  others  in  their  improvement  of 
the  steam-engine."*  In  this  stage  of  his  career,  the  name  of  the 
Glasgow  mechanic  whose  statue  is  in  Westminster  Abbey,  appears 
not  to  have  been  sufficiently  known  to  be  spelt  correctly  by  a  wri- 
ter of  note.  Dr.  Aikin  probably  knew  little  of  the  achievements  of 
the  man  who,  "  directing  the  force  of  an  original  genius,  early  ex- 
ercised in  philosophic  research,  to  the  improvement  of  the  steam- 
engine,  enlarged  the  resources  of  his  country,  increased  the  power 
of  man,  and  rose  to  an  eminent  place  amongst  the  illustrious  follow- 
ers of  science  and  the  real  benefactors  of  the  world."  f  The  ro- 
tatory steam-engine  of  Watt  was  first  applied  to  the  textile  manu- 
factures of  Lancashire  in  1 787,  when  one  was  erected  at  Warring- 
ton.  It  had  been  applied  in  Nottinghamshire  in  1785. 

In  1856,  according  to  the  Report  of  the  Factory  Commissioners, 
the  steam-engines  employed  in  5000  factories  represented  161,000 
horse-power,  giving  motion  to  the  astounding  number  of  33,000,000 
spindles.  It  is  calculated  in  the  Statistical  Account  of  the  Popula- 
tion of  1851,  that  in  Great  Britain  "  more  than  a  million  young 
women  are  spinsters" — the  still  recognized  name  for  unmarried 
women.  To  produce  the  same  amount  of  yarn  spun  in  the  old 
domestic  way,  would  probably  require  not  only  all  the  spinsters 
of  our  own  country,  and  all  the  spinsters  of  our  great  Indian  em- 
pire, where  the  Hindoo  girl  still  produces  the  finest  yarn  from  her 
primitive  wheel,  but  all  the  spinsters  of  the  habitable  globe.  The 
rate  at  which  the  spindles  of  a  cotton-mill  move  so  far  exceeds  the 
rate  of  the  spinning-wheel,  that  no  smaller  number,  we  may  pre- 
sume, could  convert  a  thousand  million  pounds  of  raw  cotton  into 
yarn  in  one  year,  as  is  now  done  in  Great  Britain.  But  if  the  rate 
of  speed  were  equal,  and  the  object  could  be  effected  by  the  daily 
movement  for  ten  hours  of  thirty-three  millions  of  spindles,  it 
would  be  necessary  that  every  British  spinster  should  have  the 
power  of  giving  activity  to  thirty-three  wheels  with  one  spindle 
each  ;  or  that,  having  the  advantage  of  the  spinning-jenny  with 
eight  spindles,  she  should  have  the  power  of  working  four  jennies 
at  one  and  the  same  time.  The  contrast  between  the  old  spinning- 

*  Aikin,  p.  177.  t  Lord  Brougham's  Epitaph  on  Watt. 


DR.    CARTWRIGHT.  253 

wheel  and  the  spinning-mill  cannot  be  put  in  a  stronger  point  of 
view. 

Inventions  connected  with  the  more  rapid  processes  of  spin- 
ning were  not  long  behind  the  jenny  and  the  water-frame.  Such 
was  the  cylindrical  carding-engine.  The  natural  progression 
of  machinery  in  spinning,  from  the  simplest  domestic  wheel  to 
the  complex  mule,  would,  we  may  presume,  have  suggested  that 
the  same  advance  would  be  applicable  to  weaving ;  that  as  the 
flyshuttle  had  doubled  the  rate  at  which  a  hand-weaver  could 
work,  so  some  invention  might  double,  or  even  supersede,  the 
still  tardy  process  of  the  hand-weaver.  Such  an  invention  did 
come,  though  in  a  very  rude  and  imperfect  state.  Edmund  Cart- 
wright,  a  clergyman,  bred  at  University  College,  Oxford  —  a 
poet  and  critic — was  at  Matlock  in  1 784,  when,  in  a  mixed  com- 
pany in  which  were  some  persons  from  Manchester,  the  talk  was 
about  cotton — how  the  want  of  hands  to  weave  would  operate 
against  the  spinning-mills.  Cartwright  knew  nothing  of  machines 
or  manufactures  ;  he  had  never  even  seen  a  weaver  at  work ;  but 
he  said  that  if  it  came  to  a  want  of  hands,  Arkwright  must  invent  a 
weaving-mill.  The  Manchester  men  maintained  that  such  a  notion 
was  impracticable.  Cartwright  went  home,  and,  turning  his  thoughts 
from  weaving  articles  for  the  "  Monthly  Review,"  laboured  assidu- 
ously to  produce  a  loom  that  would  weave  cloth  without  hands  to 
throw  the  shuttle.  His  children  remember  him  as  walking  about 
as  if  in  deep  meditation,  occasionally  throwing  his  arms  from  side 
to  side  and  they  were  told  that  their  father  was  thinking  of  the  action 
of  the  shuttle.*  He  completed  his  machine,  which,  he  says,  required 
the  strength  of  two  powerful  men  to  work  at  a  slow  rate,  and  whose 
springs  were  strong  enough  to  have  thrown  a  Congreve  rocket. 
He  took  out  a  patent.  Cartwright's  power-loom,  improved  by  the 
inventor  by  incessant  exercises  of  ingenuity,  came  very  slowly  into 
use.  A  mill,  the  first  erected  for  their  employment  on  a  large 
scale,  was  wilfully  set  on  fire,  and  five  hundred  of  the  power- 
looms  were  destroyed.  The  patent  expired,  having  been  to  the 
inventor  a  constant  source  of  loss  and  anxiety.  The  invention, 
great  as  its  results  have  been,  was  scarcely  recognized  in  the  last 
century.  The  power-loom  was  first  brought  into  profitable  use  at 
Glasgow,  in  1801.  But  the  ultimate  advantage  of  the  principle  of 
automatic  weaving  was  fully  acknowledged;  and  in  1807,  upon  a 
memorial  of  the  principal  cotton-spinners,  Parliament  granted  Dr. 
Cartwright  io,ooo/.,  for  '•  the  good  service  he  had  rendered  the 

*  The  late  Mrs.  Penrose,  whose  "  History  "  is  known  as  that  of  "Mrs.  Markliam," 
vras  a  daughter  of  Dr.  Cartwright. 

VOL.  VI.— 23 


354  HISTORY   OF    ENGLAND. 

public  by  his  invention  of  weaving."  There  were  only  2300  power- 
looms  at  work  in  Great  Britain  in  1813.  In  1833  there  were 
100,000.  At  the  present  time,  they  are  as  universal  as  spinning 
machines, — very  different  in  their  beautiful  construction  from 
Cartwright's  invention,  but  the  same  in  principle.  The  Returns  of 
the  Factory  Inspectors  for  1856  show  the  employment  of  369,205 
power-looms,  of  which  298,847  were  for  weaving  cotton.  Such  has 
been  the  progress  of  an  idea  casually  impressed  upon  the  active 
mind  of  a  scholar,  who  was  previously  conscious  of  no  aptitude  for 
mechanical  pursuits.  His  parliamentary  reward  did  not  repay  his 
expenses  in  working  out  his  scheme. 

The  history  of  the  cotton-manufacture,  as  of  most  other  arts, 
abounds  with  examples  of  the  struggles  of  inventors,  if  not  against 
neglect  and  fraud,  against  the  almost  insuperable  difficulties  of 
carrying  forward  an  invention  to  commercial  success.  Bentham  has 
expressed  a  great  truth  in  forcible  words  ;  "  As  the  world  advances, 
the  snares,  the  traps,  the  pitfalls,  which  inexperience  has  found 
in  the  path  of  inventive  industry,  will  be  filled  up  by  the  fortunes 
and  the  minds  of  those  who  have  fallen  into  them  and  been  ruined. 
In  this,  as  in  every  other  career,  the  ages  gone  by  have  been  the 
forlorn  hope,  which  has  received  for  those  who  followed  them  the 
blow  of  fortune."  *  Dr.  John  Roebuck,  "  who  may  be  said  to  have 
originated  the  modern  iron  manufacture  of  Britain,  though  his 
merits  as  a  great  public  benefactor  have  as  yet  received  but  slight 
recognition,"  f  was  one  of  those  who  encountered  the  snares  and 
pitfalls  in  the  path  of  inexperience.  We  have  shown  what  the  iron 
manufacture  was  in  1740.  J  In  1774,  we  find  it  alleged  that  "  there 
is  no  room  to  doubt,  that  in  every  one  of  the  three  kingdoms  there 
may  be  enough  iron  found  to  supply  all  the  British  dominions,  and 
^yet  we  import  very  large  quantities  from  the  North,  from  Spain 
and  from  America.  The  reason  of  this  is,  because  the  inhabitants 
of  these  countries  can  make  it  cheaper."  They  had  a  great  com- 
mand of  fuel  for  charcoal.  "  It  is  earnestly  to  be  wished,"  says  the 
writer,  "  that,  as  it  hath  been  often  proposed  and  promised,  the  use 
of  pit-coal  could  be  generally  introduced,  so  as  to  answer  in  all 
respects  as  well  as  charcoal."  He  adds,  "at  this  time,  as  I  have 
been  well  informed,  iron  is  wrought  with  pit-coal  at  the  Carron 
Works  in  North  Britain."§  The  founder  of  these  Carron  Works, 
and  the  inventor  of  the  economical  processes  which  first  gave  cheap 
iron  to  our  country,  in  many  forms  of  utility,  was  Dr.  John  Roebuck. 

The  man  who  succeeded  in  proving,  by  the  commercial  results 
of  his  processes,  that  iron  could  be  smelted  by  pit-coal,  everywhere 

*  "  Manual  of  Political  Economy."  t  "  Quarterly  Review,"  vol.  civ.  p.  78. 

t  Ante,  vol.  iv.  p.  396.  §  Campbell,  "  Political  Survey,"  vol.  ii.  p.  43. 


THE  CARRON  SMELTING  WORKS. 


355 


in  abundance,  instead  of  by  charcoal  from  woods  that  were  disap- 
pearing through  the  advance  of  agriculture,  was  a  physician  at  Bir- 
mingham. He  was  a  scientific  chemist,  as  far  as  the  science  of 
chemistry  was  understood  in  the  middle  of  the  eighteenth  century ; 
and  he  was  connected  with  a  chemical  manufactory,  to  which  he 
devoted  himself  with  the  ardour  of  an  experimentalist.  By  his 
improvements  in  the  production  of  sulphuric  acid  (then  called  vitrio- 
lic acid),  the  use  of  which  was  even  then  extensive  in  manufactures, 
he  reduced  the  price  of  that  article  to  a  fourth  of  its  previous  cost. 
He  ,was  one  of  those  who  led  the  way  in  those  great  chemical 
discoveries  which  have  produced  as  wonderful  changes  in  the  pro- 
ductive power  of  the  country  as  machinery  has  produced.  Sulphuric 
acid,  after  Roebuck's  time,  partially  did  the  work  of  bleaching  that 
the  sun  and  air  were  necessary  to  complete.  But  his  attempts  to 
connect  bleaching  processes  with  the  vitriol  works  that  he  estab- 
lished at  Preston  Pans  were  not  successful.  Having  abandoned 
his  practice  as  a  physician,  and  settled  in  Scotland,  he  turned  his 
thoughts  to  smelting  and  manufacturing  iron.  At  Carron,  in  the 
parish  of  Tarbert,  in  Stirlingshire,  there  were  the  great  requisites 
for  this  manufacture.  There  was  abundant  coal,  and  ample  com- 
mand of  water-power.  Some  iron-stone  and  lime  were  to  be  found 
within  a  mile;  some  was  to  be  procured  from  places  ten  miles  dis- 
tant.* Workmen  were  brought  from  Birmingham  and  Sheffield ; 
and  on  the  banks  of  a  river,  renowned  in  Scottish  history,  was  the 
famous  foundry  established  in  1759,  which  sent  cheap  grates  into 
the  homes  of  England,  and  cast  the  guns  for  Wellington's  battery- 
train.  To  Dr.  Roebuck  has  been  assigned  the  honour  of  inventing 
the  process  of  converting  cast  iron  into  malleable  iron.  But  it  is 
enough  to  give  him  an  enduring  name  in  the  history  of  manufactur- 
ing industry,  that  he  first  brought  about  that  marriage  between  the 
neighbours  coal  and  iron  which  time  can  never  dissolve— that 
union  which  made  iron  "the  soul  of  every  other  manufacture;" 
which,  when  the  iron  railing  round  St.  Paul's  was  still  pointed  out 
as  a  great  feat  of  charcoal-smelting,  enabled  a  daring  engineer, 
within  fifteen  years  of  the  time  when  the  first  furnace  was  lighted 
at  Carron,  to  throw  a  cast-iron  bridge  over  the  Severn  of  a  hundred 
feet  span  ;  and  which,  during  the  lapse  of  a  century,  has  covered 
our  country  with  works  that  are  amongst  the  noblest  triumphs 
of  a  great  era  of  the  Sciences  and  Arts  ;  compared  with  which  struc- 
tures the  once  famous  Coalbrook  Dale  bridge  appears  a  toy.  Dr. 
Roebuck  called  Smeaton  to  his  aid  as  an  engineer,  and  he  invite 
Watt  to  experiment  upon  the  employment  of  his  steam-e 

*  »  New  Statistical  Account  of  Scotland-Stirlingshire,"  vol.  viii.  p.  37S- 


35^  HISTORY   OF    ENGLAND. 

blowing  the  furnaces.  He  was  at  one  time  associated  as  a  partner  in 
the  great  career  that  was  opening  to  Watt.  But  he  became  involved 
in  other  undertakings  beyond  his  capital ;  and  had  the  common  fate 
of  those  who  undertake  mighty  enterprises  without  an  adequate 
command  of  the  sinews  of  all  enterprise,  whether  of  war  or  of  peace. 
The  historian  who  has  brought  so  large  a  fund  of  good  sense 
and  liberality  to  his  narrative  of  English  affairs  from  the  peace  of 
Utrecht  to  the  close  of  the  American  war,  says  that  the  year  1763 
"was  distinguished  by  an  event  of  more  real  importance  than  the 
rise  or  the  resignation  of  lord  Bute."  *  That  year  is  considered 
memorable  for  the  production  of  a  new  kind  of  earthenware, 
remarkable  for  fineness  and  durability.  This  ware  was  soon  to 
remove  the  pewter  dishes  from  their  dingy  rows  in  the  tradesman's 
kitchen,  and  to  supersede  the  wooden  platter  and  the  brown  dish 
of  the  poor  man's  cottage.  The  artisan  of  Burslem,  in  Stafford- 
shire, who  brought  about  this  change,  was  Josiah  Wedgwood.  We 
have  already  briefly  indicated  the  condition  of  the  Staffordshire 
Potteries  at  the  beginning  of  the  eighteenth  century,  f  Dr. 
Campbell,  in  1774,  makes  this  statement:  "In  the  space  of  about 
sixty  years,  as  I  have  been  well  informed,  the  produce  of  this  ware 
hath  risen  from  fooo/.  to  ioo,ooo/.  per  annum.  These  are  entered 
by  the  thousand  pieces  for  exportation,  which  is  annually  about 
forty  thousand. "J  In  1857  there  were  a  hundred  million  pieces  of 
British  earthenware  and  porcelain  exported  to  every  European 
country  (with  the  exception  of  France),  and  to  America,  the  United 
States  being  by  far  the  largest  importers.  It  is  to  Josiah  Wedg- 
wood that  the  creation  of  this  great  manufacture  and  commerce  is 
to  be  principally  attributed.  England  had  producd  its  Bow  china, 
its  Worcester  china,  and  its  Chelsea  china,  which  was  held  to 
equal  that  of  Dresden.  But  these  elaborate  tea-services  and  orna- 
ments were  for  the  luxurious.  Palissy  gave  France  the  lead 
amongst  industrious  nations  in  her  manufacture  of  expensive  por- 
celain. But  Wedgwood  in  his  ware  combined  the  imitation  of  the 
most  beautiful  forms  of  ancient  art  with  unequalled  cheapness. 
In  his  workshops  we  may  trace  the  commencement  of  a  system  of 
improved  design,  which  made  his  ware  so  superior  to  any  other 
that  had  been  produced  in  Europe  for  common  uses.  England, 
by  the  discovery  of  a  contemporary  of  Wedgwood,  Mr.  Cooks- 
worthy,  of  Plymouth,  was  found  to  possess,  in  the  Cornish  clay,  a 
material  equal  to  that  of  the  Sevres  and  Dresden  manufactories, 
His  patent  was  transferred  to  the  Staffordshire  Potteries  in  1777, 

*  Lord  Mahon — "  History  of  England,"  vol.  v.  p.  2.  t  Ante,  vol.  iv.  p.  400. 

t  "  Political  Survey,"  vol.  ii.  p.  18. 


COMMERCIAL   TREATY   OF    1787    WITH   FRANCE.          357 

and  from  that  time  we  went  steadily  forward  to  the  attainment  of 
our  present  excellence  in  the  production  of  porcelain,  upon  a  scale 
commensurate  with  the  general  spread  of  the  comforts  and  refine- 
ments of  society. 

The  transference  of  power  to  Mr.  Pitt,  in  1784,  and  the  firm- 
ness with  which  he  was  enabled  to  hold  its  possession,  presented 
opportunities  for  wise  endeavours  to  place  the  commerce  of  the 
kingdom  upon  a  broader  foundation.  The  first  object  attained  was 
the  removal,  in  1785,  of  an  odious  system  of  restrictions  and  disa- 
bilities in  the  trade  between  Great  Britain  and  Ireland.  In  the 
preliminary  inquiries  by  a  committee  of  the  House  of  Commons, 
some  interesting  details  of  manufactures  were  elicited.  Mr. 
Wedgwood  pointed  out  how  greatly  the  industry  of  the  Potteries 
multiplied  the  industry  of  others  besides  that  of  the  twenty  thou- 
sand persons  directly  employed  ;  the  quantity  of  inland  carriage  it 
created ;  the  labour  it  called  forth  in  collieries,  and  in  raising  the 
raw  material  of  earthenware  ;  the  employment  of  coasting  vessels 

/in  the  transport  of  this  material  from  the  Land's-End  to  different 
parts  of  the  coast :  and  the  re-conveyance  of  the  finished  goods  to 
those  "ports  "  where  they  are  shipped  for  every  foreign  market  that 
is  open  to  the  earthenware  of  England."  In  1787  the  government 
carried  through  a  bold  measure  of  commercial  freedom  in  a  treaty 
of  commerce  and  navigation  with  France,  which  opened  new  ports, 
not  only  to  the  earthenware  of  England,  but  to  her  woollens,  her 
cottons,  her  hardware  and  cutlery,  her  manufactures  of  brass  and 
copper.  Previous  to  this  treaty,  most  of  the  staple  productions  of 
Britain  had  been  prohibited  for  so  long  a  period  in  France  that  the 
notion  of  exchange,  under  a  system  of  moderate  duties,  had  ceased 
to  be  contemplated  by  the  merchants  of  either  country.  The 
political  arguments  by  which  this  great  measure  was  supported, 
and  those  by  which  it  was  opposed,  will  be  noticed  in  a  subsequent 
chapter.  We  introduce  the  subject  here,  because  the  debates  in 
both  Houses  of  Parliament  supply  some  general  views  of  the  com- 
mercial policy  of  a  period,  when,  as  we  have  seen,  the  industry  of 
this  country  had  received  an  extraordinary  impulse  from  new 
inventions,  and  from  increased  energy  in  the  long-established 
modes  of  production.  The  general  argument  for  the  treaty  was 
put  with  great  force  by  Mr.  Pitt :  "  France  was,  by  the  peculiar 
dispensation  of  Providence,  gifted,  perhaps  more  than  any  other 
country,  with  what  made  life  desirable,  in  point  of  soil,  climate,  and 
natural  productions.  It  had  the  most  fertile  vineyards  and  the 
richest  harvests ;  the  greatest  luxuries  of  man  were  produced  in  it 
with  little  cost,  and  with  moderate  labour.  Britain  was  not  thus 


358  HISTORY   OF   ENGLAND. 

blest  by  nature ;  but  on  the  contrary,  it  possessed,  through  the 
happy  freedom  of  its  constitution,  and  the  equal  security  of  its 
laws,  an  energy  in  its  enterprises  and  a  stability  in  its  exertions, 
which  had  gradually  raised  it  to  a  state  of  commercial  grandeur. 
Not  being  so  bountifully  gifted  by  Heaven,  it  had  recourse  to  labour 
and  art  by  which  it  had  acquired  the  ability  of  supplying  its 
neighbour  with  all  the  necessary  embellishments  of  life  in  exchange 
for  her  natural  luxuries.  Thus  standing  with  regard  to  each  other, 
a  friendly  connection  seemed  to  be  pointed  out  between  them, 
instead  of  the  state  of  unalterable  enmity  which  was  falsely  said  to 
be  their  true  political  feeling  towards  each  other."  *  The  principle 
laid  down  by  Pitt  has  a  permanent  importance.  The  national  and 
commercial  jealousies  by  which  the  principle  was  assailed  are  simply 
curious,  as  an  exhibition  of  plausible  fallacies.  Bishop  Watson, — 
one  who  had  rendered  good  service  to  the  arts  of  his  country,  by 
making  chemistry  popular  in  his  amusing  "  Essays," — maintained 
that,  as  in  the  time  of  Charles  II..  the  trade  with  France  was  held 
to  be  detrimental  to  our  interests  because  it  showed  a  balance 
against  us  "  by  which  we  lost  a  million  a  year,"  such  a  trade  would 
not  be  lucrative  and  safe  in  the  time  of  George  III. :  that  is,  be- 
cause the  British  consumer  of  the  seventeenth  century  had  paid  in 
money  to  the  French  producer  a  million  a  year  above  what  the 
British  producer  received,  "we  lost  a  million  a  year,"  the  satisfac- 
tion of  the  wants  of  the  consumer  being  nothing  in  the  account. 
All  this  dust,  which,  from  time  immemorial,  had  been  thrown  into 
the  eyes  of  the  nation,  is  now  scattered  to  the  winds.  But  the 
anxious  prelate  thought  that  if  our  home  market,  the  richest 
market  in  Europe,  was  opened  to  France,  her  own  industry  and 
ingenuity  would  be  dangerously  stimulated.  France,  he  said,  was 
ambitious  to  rival  us  in  its  rising  manufactures  of  cotton,  cutlery, 
hardware,  and  pottery.  If  she  were  to  cultivate  manufactures  in 
the  same  degree  as  we  had  done,  our  ruin  would  be  inevitable. 
France,  Dr.  Watson  maintained,  had  abundant  pit-coal ;  was  cast- 
ing pig-iron ;  was  making  cutlery  at  Moulins  cheaper  and  neater 
than  that  of  Sheffield ;  and,  notwithstanding  a  recent  law  of  England, 
prohibiting  the  exportation  of  tools  and  machines,  France  had  got 
models  of  them,  and  would  soon  copy  our  tools,  and  not  take  our 
manufactures.  The  bishop  proclaims,  in  his  despair,  that  "  every 
tool  used  at  Sheffield,  Birmingham,  and  Manchester,  might  be  seen 
in  a  public  building  at  Paris,  where  they  were  deposited  for  the  in- 
spection of  their  workmen."  f  Great  manufactures  are  not  created 

*  "  Parliamentary  History,"  vol.  xxvi.  col.  395.  t  Ibid.,  vol.  xxvi.  col.  523,  and 

eol.  543. 


DREAD    OF    FOREIGN    RIVALRY. 


359 


simply  by  possessing  copies  of  another  country's  machinery. 
The  French  government  obtained,  in  1 788,  models  of  the  cotton- 
spinning  machines  used  in  England ;  but  whilst  a  peaceful  inter- 
course enabled  us  to  send  France  cotton  fabrics,  she  did  not 
attempt  to  manufacture  for  herself.  Cotton-mills  were  established 
in  Normandy  and  at  Orleans  when  the  continent  was  shut  out  by 
the  war  of  the  Revolution  from  commercial  exchange  with  Eng- 
land.* But  there  was  a  power  possessed  by  our  country  that  France 
and  other  continental  nations  did  not  possess,  and  had  not  capital 
and  trained  workmen  to  acquire  by  imitation ;  a  power,  of  which  it 
was  said  in  1819  that  it  had  "  fought  the  battles  of  Europe,  and  ex- 
alted and  sustained,  through  the  late  tremendous  contest,  the 
political  greatness  of  our  land  ; " — a  power  which  upon  the  return  of 
peace,  "  enabled  us  to  pay  the  interest  of  our  debt,  and  to  maintain 
the  arduous  struggle  in  which  we  were  engaged  with  the  skill  and 
capital  of  countries  less  oppressed  with  taxation."  f  That  great 
power  was  "  our  improved  steam-engine." 

In  the  year  1757,  over  the  door  of  a  staircase  opening  from  the 
quadrangle  of  the  college  of  Glasgow,  was  exhibited  a  board,  in- 
scribed "  James  Watt,  Mathematical-Instrument  Maker  to  the 
University."  In  a  room  of  small  dimensions  sat  a  young  man  in 
his  twenty-first  year,  filing  and  polishing  quadrants  and  sectors,  to 
sell  for  his  livelihood.  He  had  come  in  his  eighteenth  year  from 
his  paternal  home,  at  Greenock,  where  his  father  carried  on  the 
business  of  a  ship-chandler,  to  endeavour  to  learn  the  art  of  a  math- 
ematical-instrument maker;  but  he  could  find  no  one  in  Glasgow 
capable  of  instructing  him.  By  the  advice  of  a  kinsman  of  his 
mother,  who  was  a  Professor  in  the  Glasgow  University,  he  went 
to  London  with  the  same  object.  For  a  year  he  worked  with  in- 
tense application  in  a  shop  in  Finch  Lane,  Cornhill;  but  his  health 
failing,  he  returned  to  Glasgow,  having  become  a  skilful  mechanic, 
and  possessing  the  far  greater  advantage  of  a  sound  mathematical 
education.  He  endeavoured  to  establish  a  shop  in  that  city.  The 
worshipful  Company  of  Hammermen,— in  that  spirit  of  exclusiveness 
which  the  lapse  of  a  century  has  scarcely  eradicated,  where  Guilds 
and  Corporations  have  any  remnant  of  antiquated  privileges,— re- 
solved to  prevent  James  Watt  exercising  his  art.  He  was,  how- 
ever, employed  within  the  precincts  of  the  University  to  repair 
some  astronomical  instruments  ;  and  several  of  the  Professors  took 
the  ingenious  young  man  under  their  protection,  and  gave  him  a 
workshop  within  their  walls.  Here  he  soon  attracted  the  notice 

»  Say—"  Cours  d' Economic  Politique,"  tome  i.  chap.  xix. 
t  Jeffrey—"  Character  of  James  Watt,"  1819- 


300  HISTORY   OF    ENGLAND. 

and  received  the  kind  attentions  of  men  whose  names  will  be  held 
ever  in  veneration— Adam  Smith,  Robert  Simson,  and  Joseph 
Black.  To  these  eminent  philosophers  even  the  members  of  the 
Company  of  Hammermen  would  lowly  bow  ;  as  they  bowed  to  the 
magnates  of  Glasgow,  the  tobacco-lords  who  walked  in  scarlet 
cloaks  and  bushy  wigs  apart  at  the  Cross,  and  to  any  one  of  whom 
no  tradesman  dared  speak  till  he  caught  the  great  man's  eye,  and 
was  invited  by  him  to  come  across  the  street  and  impart  his  humble 
request.*  Watt  had  an  ardent  friend  in  a  college  student,  John 
Robison,  about  the  same  age  with  himself,  who  had  also  a  genius 
for  scientific  pursuits.  He  has  recounted  that  when  he  first  went 
into  Watt's  little  shop,  and  expected  to  see  only  a  workman,  he 
was  surprised  to  find  the  quadrant-maker  his  superior  in  philoso- 
phy. But  Robison  left  the  University;  went  to  sea  as  a  midship- 
man; and  was  in  the  boat  on  the  St.  Lawrence  with  Wolfe,  on  the 
morning  on  which  the  Heights  of  Abraham  were  scaled.  The 
friends  had  conversed  about  steam-engines  before  Robison's  de- 
parture. When  the  young  man  returned  in  1763, — having  been  em- 
ployed by  the  Admiralty  to  take  charge  of  Harrison's  chronometer 
on  a  voyage  to  Jamaica,  to  test  its  sufficiency  for  determining  the 
longitude  of  a  ship  at  sea, — he  found  that  his  old  companion  in  the 
College  workshop  had  been  making  more  rapid  advances  in  scien- 
tific attainments  than  himself ;  and  had  been  long  engaged  in  try- 
ing experiments  in  the  construction  of  a  steam  engine,  upon 
principles  different  from  that  in  common  use.  He  had  lighted 
upon  the  same  principle  as  that  now  employed  in  a  high-pressure 
engine.  In  that  year  of  1763  a  small  model  of  Newcomen's  engine 
was  put  into  the  charge  of  Watt  to  repair.  The  imperfections  of 
that  invent; on, known  as"  the  atmospheric  engine,"  were  evident 
to  him ;  and  he  long  laboured  unsuccessfully  to  discover  how  its 
defects  could  be  remedied.  The  radical  defect  was,  that  three 
times  as  much  heat  as  was  necessary  for  the  action  of  the  machine 
was  lost.  If  one-fourth  of  the  heat  could  generate  an  equal  amount 
of  available  steam,  the  saving  of  fuel  alone  would  ensure  the  adop- 
tion of  an  engine  constructed  to  produce  such  an  important  economy. 
Newcomen's  machine  was  used  in  draining  mines,  in  raising  water 
to  turn  water-wheels,  and  in  blowing  furnaces  for  iron-smelting. 
But  its  expense  of  working  was  enormous.  Its  construction  was 
clumsy  and  imperfect.  We  may  imagine  Adam  Smith  telling  Watt 
the  str.ry  which  he  has  so  well  told  in  the  "Wealth  of  Nations," 
of  the  first  fire-engine;  in  which  "a  boy  was  constantly  employed 
to  open  and  shut  alternately  the  communication  between  the  boiler 

*  "  New  Statistical  Account — Lanarkshire,"  p.  232, 


WATT,    THE    INVENTOR   OF  THE   STEAM  ENGINE.  361 

and  the  cylinder,  according  as  the  piston  either  ascended  or  de. 
scended  ;  "  and  how  the  boy,  wanting  to  play,  found  out  that  "  by 
tying  a  string  from  the  handle  of  the  valve  which  opened  this  com- 
munication to  another  part  of  the  machine,  the  valve  would  open 
and  shut  without  his  assistance."  *  Improvements  such  as  this 
had  been  accomplished  by  accidental  observation.  What  improve- 
ments might  not  be  effected  by  careful  examination,  grounded  upon 
scientific  knowledge.  The  experimental  philosopher  was  still  work- 
ing in  the  dark,  when  he  discovered  that  water  converted  into  steam 
would  heat  about  six  times  its  own  weight  of  water  at  47°  or  48° 
to  212°.  He  mentioned  this  fact  to  Dr.  Black,  who  then  explained 
to  him  his  doctrine  of  latent  heat,  with  which  Watt  had  been  pre- 
viously unacquainted.  He  says  of  himself  that  "  he  stumbled  upon 
one  of  the  material  facts  by  which  that  beautiful  theory  is  support- 
ed." Amongst  the  principal  features  of  scientific  progress  at  this 
period,  sir  John  Herschel  includes  "  the  development  of  the  doc- 
trine of  latent  heat  by  Black,  with  its  train  of  important  conse- 
quences, including  the  scientific  theory  of  the  steam-engine. "f  The 
ceaseless  preparatory  labour  of  thought  was  now  to  produce  its 
results.  In  a  solitary  walk,  Watt  solved  the  great  problem  upon 
which  he  had  been  so  long  fntent.  The  necessity  of  working  for 
his  bread,  whilst  he  eagerly  desired  to  bring  his  ideas  into  a  prac- 
tical shape,  was  still  forced  upon  him.  But  he  saw  his  way.  The 
invention  was  complete  in  his  mind.  To  have  a  model  constructed 
was  a  work  of  great  diffculty.  He  had  no  capital  to  employ  in  en- 
gaging better  workmen  than  the  blacksmiths  and  tinmen  of  Glas- 
gow. He  struggled  against  these  difficulties  till  he  found  a  zealous 
and  powerful  ally  in  Dr.  Roebuck.  At  length,  in  May,  1768,  Watt 
had  the  happiness  of  congratulating  his  friend  on  the  achieve- 
ments of  their  mutual  hopes :  "  I  sincerely  wish  you  joy  of  this 
successful  result,  and  hope  it  will  make  you  some  return  for  the 
obligations  I  ever  will  remain  under  to  you." 

It  was  agreed  that  a  patent  should  be  taken  out;  and  Watt 
repaired  to  London  to  accomplish  this  business.  On  his  way  thither 
he  had  an  interview,  at  Birmingham,  with  Matthew  Boulton,  who 
desired  to  join  in  the  speculation.  This  eminent  manufacturer,  in 
every  quality  of  sterling  integrity,  of  generous  feelings,  of  skill  in 
organization,  of  prudent  enterprise,  was  worthy  of  being  the  asso- 
ciate of  a  man  of  genius  like  Watt,  who  was  timid,  and  sometimes 
desponding.  Their  partnership  was  unfortunately  deferred  t 
1773,  for  Roebuck  would  not  admit  Boulton  to  a  share  of  the 
patent,  except  upon  terms  to  which  the  prosperous  and  ingenious 

#  "  Wealth  of  Nations,"  book  i.  ciiap.  i. 

t  "  Discourse  on  the  Study  of  Natural  Philosophy." 


362  HISTORY   OF    ENGLAND. 

proprietor  of  the  works  at  Soho  could  not  agree.  Watt,  mean- 
while, had  to  maintain  himself  by  the  superintendence  of  several 
canals  then  in  course  of  construction.  The  employment  was 
disagreeable  to  him.  He  had  no  advantage  from  working  his  pat- 
ent, for  his  partner,  Roebuck,  was  engaged  in  too  many  losing 
undertakings  to  advance  more  capital.  At  length  that  partner,  in 
whose  misfortune  Watt  deeply  sympathized,  agreed  to  sell  his 
property  in  the  patent  to  Boulton.  In  1774  Watt  went  to  Birming- 
ham to  superintend  the  construction  of  his  machines  ;  and  he  wrote 
to  his  father,  "  the  fire-engine  I  have  invented  is  now  going,  and  an- 
swers much  better  than  any  other  that  has  yet  been  made."  There 
was  very  soon  a  change  in  the  character  of  Boulton's  manufactory. 
Dr.  Johnson  kept  a  Diary  of  a  tour  in  Wales  in  1774.  On  the 
2oth  of  September  is  this  entry:  "  We  went  to  Boulton's,  who,  with 
great  civility,  led  us  through  his  shops.  I  could  not  distinctly  see 
his  enginery — Twelve  dozen  of  buttons  for  three  shillings — Spoons 
struck  at  once."  In  1776,  Johnson  and  Boswell  made  an  excursion 
to  Oxford,  and  also  saw  Birmingham,  of  which  Boswell  has  this 
record  :  "  Mr.  Hector  was  so  good  as  to  accompany  me  to  see  the 
great  works  of  Mr.  Boulton,  at  a  place  which  he  has  called  Soho, 
about  two  miles  from  Birmingham,  which  the  very  ingenious  pro- 
prietor showed  me  himself  to  the  best  advantage.  I  wished  John- 
son had  been  with  us ;  for  it  was  a  scene  which  I  should  have  been 
glad  to  contemplate  by  his  light.  The  vastness  and  the  contrivance 
'bi  some  of  the  machinery  would  have  matched  his  mighty  mind. 
I  shall  never  forget  Mr.  Boulton's  expression  to  me, — '  I  sell  here, 
tir,  what  all  the  world  desires  to  have — Power  ! ' ."  * 

It  is  unnecessary,  for  our  purpose,  that  we  should  pursue  the 
history  of  the  final  establishment  of  the  steam-engine  of  Watt  to  be 
the  great  operative  power  of  the  larger  industries  of  Britain.  It 
quickly  superseded  Newcomen's  machines  in  draining  the  Cornish 
tin  and  copper  mines.  It  multiplied  cotton-mills  in  the  towns  of 
Lancashire  and  of  Scotland,  without  reference  to  the  previous  neces- 
sity of  choosing  localities  on  the  banks  of  the  Irwell  or  the  Derwent, 
the  Tweed  or  the  Clyde.  It  was  blowing  the  iron  furnaces  of  Dudley, 
and  hammering  steel  at  Sheffield.  It  was  forging  anchors  and  impel- 
ling block-machinery  at  Portsmouth.  Yet  it  was  ten  years  before 
Boulton  and  Watt  derived  any  profit  from  the  discovery.  They 
had  to  struggle,  in  the  first  instance,  against  the  common  prejudice 
which  attaches  to  every  new  invention.  All  the  business  sagacity 
of  Boulton  was  necessary  to  encourage  its  use  by  the  most  mod- 

*  It  has  been  said  that  Boulton,  upon  being  asked  by  George  III.  what  he  dealt  in, 
replied,  "  What  kings  delight  in, — Power  1  "  Boswell's  story  is  more  probable. 


THE   SWORD   AND   THE    STEAM-ENGINE.  363 

crate  price  ;  or  by  stipulating  only  for  a  royalty  upon  the  amount  of 
fuel  which  it  saved,  charging  nothing  for  the  engine.  The  partners 
had  to  contend,  in  actions  at  law,  against  unscrupulous  pirates.  But 
Parliament,  in  1775,  had  granted  an  extension  of  the  patent,  and  the 
reward  to  the  inventor  and  his  admirable  associate  would  come  in  time. 
They  would  be  repaid,  however  tardily,  by  the  pecuniary  fruits  of 
their  skill  and  perseverance,  before  the  invention  was  thrown  open 
to  the  world.  But  even  before  that  period  what  mighty  effects  had 
been  produced  upon  British  industry  by  this  crowning  triumph  of 
an  enterprising  age !  Without  its  aid  the  energy  of  the  people  had 
more  than  counterbalanced  the  waste  of  the  national  resources  by 
an  obstinate  government  in  a  foolish  and  unjust  war.  The  steam- 
engine  of  the  "  Mathematical-Instrument  Maker  to  the  University 
of  Glasgow  "  gave  a  new  impulse  to  the  same  energy  in  another 
war  against  a  gigantic  military  despotism,  wielded  by  a  man  origi- 
nally as  humble  as  himself — a  student  of  the  Military  School  of 
Brienne.  Captain  Sword  and  Captain  Steam  were  to  engage  in  a 
struggle  not  less  arduous  than  that  of  "  Captain  Sword  and  Captain 
Pen."  The  one  was  to  lay  prosperous  cities  in  ashes ;  the  other 
was  to  build  up  new  cities  in  desolate  places.  The  one  was  to  close 
the  havens  of  ancient  commerce ;  the  other  was  to  freight  ships 
with  products  of  such  surpassing  excellence  and  cheapness,  that  no 
tyrannous  edicts  could  exclude  them  from  oppressed  nations.  The 
one  was  to  derange  every  effort  of  continental  industry  ;  the  other 
was  to  harmonize  every  form  of  British  labour  and  invention,  by 
lending  to  each  an  intensity  and  a  concentration  previously  un- 
known. The  one  was  to  attempt  the  subjugation  of  the  intellect  of 
brute  force  ;  the  other  was  to  complete  "  the  dominion  of  mind  ovet 
the  most  refractory  qualities  of  matter  :" 

"  Engine  of  Watt !  unrivall'd  is  thy  sway. 
Compared  with  thine,  what  is  the  tryant's  power  t 
His  might  destroys,  while  thine  creates  and  saves, 
Thy  triumphs  live  and  grow,  like  fruit  and  flower, 
But  his  are  writ  in  blood,  and  read  on  graves."  * 

*  Elliott.—"  Steam  at  Sheffield." 


364  HISTORY   OF   ENGLAND. 


CHAPTER  XX. 

State  of  Art  in  the  reign  of  George  II. — Inferiority  of  native  artists. — Formation  of  an 
English  School  of  Painting. — Academies. — First  Exhibition  of  Works  of  English 
Artists. — Exhibition  of  Sign-paintings. — Foundation  of  the  Royal  Academy. — Early 
Exhibitions. — Reynolds,  Gainsborough,  Wilson,  and  West. — Engraving. — Strange 
and  Woollett. — Mezzotint. — MacArdell,  &c. — Boydell  and  commerce  in  English 
engravings. — Sculpture. — Banks,  Bacon,  and  Flaxman. — Architecture. — Sir  William 
Chambers. — Bridge-building. 

A  TRANSITION  to  the  Fine  Arts  from  Agriculture  and  Man- 
ufactures, from  Spinning  Machines  and  Cotton  Mills,  from  Iron- 
works and  Potteries,  from  Canals  and  Steam  Engines,  is  not  so 
abrupt  as  it  may  at  first  appear.  In  our  immediate  times,  the  in- 
timate connexion  between  the  Arts  of  Design  and  those  exercises 
of  industry  which  have  too  exclusively  been  designated  as  the 
Useful  Arts,  has  been  distinctly  recognised.  It  has  been  found 
after  a  long  experience,  that  Taste  is  an  essential  element  in  the 
excellence  of  manufactures,  and  of  their  consequent  commercial 
value.  But  this  connexion  was  perceived  a  century  ago,  when  a 
society,  now  more  flourishing  than  ever,  founded  by  a  drawing-mas- 
ter, proposed  "  to  promote  the  arts,  manufactures,  and  commerce  of 
this  kingdom,  by  giving  honorary  or  pecuniary  rewards  as  may  be 
best  adapted  to  the  case,  for  the  communication  to  the  Society,  and 
through  the  Society  to  the  public,  of  all  such  useful  inventions,  dis- 
coveries and  improvements,  as  tend  to  that  purpose."  The  Society 
of  Arts  gave  medals  to  Mr.  Curwen  for  agricultural  improvments, 
and  he  stated  that  but  for  this  stimulus  he  should  never  have  been 
a  farmer.  The  Society  of  Arts  awarded  premiums  for  improvements 
in  dyeing  and  tanning,  in  spinning  and  weaving,  in  paper-making 
and  lace-making,  and  may  thus  have  somewhat  excited  the  inventive 
powers  which  superseded  many  of  the  old  modes  of  hand-labour. 
The  Society  of  Arts  gave  its  modest  grants  of  ten  guineas  to  Banks 
and  Flaxman,  for  their  earliest  efforts  in  sculpture  ;  and  probably 
without  this  encouragement  these  eminent  artists  might  never 
have  been  sculptors.  The  mutual  dependence  existing  between 
the  Polite  Arts,  as  the  Arts  of  Painting  and  Sculpture  were  then 
termed,  and  the  humbler  industrial  arts  which  form  the  foundations 
of  the  industrial  fabric,  was  never  more  distinctly  asserted  than  in 


LOW   STATE   OF   ART   IN   THE   REIGN   OF   GEORGE    If.     365 

the  proceedings  of  this  comprehensive  Association,  for  the  encour- 
agement of  seemingly  diverging  pursuits,  but  all  of  which  tended  to 
the  same  development  of  public  prosperity. 

In  a  former  chapter  we  traced  the  history  of  Art  in  England 
from   the  Restoration   to  the  reign  of   George  II.     At  that  time 
English  Art  was  in  a  very  low  state.     Architecture  had  greatly  de- 
clined from  the  position  to  which  Wren  had  raised  it.     Painters 
and  sculptors  were  numerous  and  well  paid,  but  the  high  places  of 
the  professions  were  chiefly  filled  by  Italians,  Germans,  Flemings 
and  Frenchmen.     Even  in  portrait  painting,  the  branch  in  which 
employment  was  most    abundant,  the  English    practitioners  were 
content  if  they  could    produce  a  satisfactory  likeness  ;   whilst  for 
everything  but  the  head  they  trusted  to  the  skill  of  "  drapery  paint- 
ers," whose  highest  ambition  it  was  so  to  complete  the  work,  that 
it  might  be  recognised  as  in  the  style  of  Sir  Godfrey  Kneller.     As 
a  lively  French  writer  said,  "  Englishmen  make  their  portraits  as 
they  make  their  pins,  each  passes  through  several  hands,  one  shapes 
the  head,  another  the  point  ;  it  takes  as  many  painters  to  finish  a 
full-length  portrait  as  it  does  tradesmen  to  equip     a  petit  maitre." 
Whenever  foreigners  referred  to  the  state  of  art  in  England  it  was 
with  a  sort -of  contemptuous  pity.     There  is  ample  reward,  it  was 
said,  for  the  foreign  artist  who  shows  even  moderate  skill,  but  noth- 
ing seems  to  evoke  native  talent ;  surely  there  must  be  something 
in  the  soil  and  climate  inimical  to  artistic  genius.*  Even  Englishmen 
shared  the  prejudice,  or  were  too  diffident  of  their  own  judgment 
to  oppose  in  a  matter  of  taste  the  acknowledged  leaders  of  Eu- 
ropean opinion.     Yet  if  there  were  no  living  English  sculptor  or 
historical  painter  of  unquestioned  eminence,  the  name  of  Hogarth 
might  seem  sufficient  to  have  turned  the  edge  of  so  dull  a  sarcasm. 
But  Hogarth,  however  great  he  was  admitted  to  be  as  a  humourist, 
was  scarcely  recognised  even  by  his  countrymen  as  a  painter.     His 

*  Abbe"  du  Bos.—"  Reflexions  Critiques  sur  la  Poesie  et  sur  la  Peinture,"  Par. 
1755,  vol.  ii.  145-7.  Le  Blanc.—"  Letters  d'un  Francais,"  Par.  1745  ;  and  see  the 
"  Discours  Preliminaire  "  to  a  sth  ed.  of  these  Letter*  Lyon,  1758  ;  Roquet.—"  L  'Etat 
des  Arts  en  Angleterre,"  Par.  1755.  To  the  same  effect  were  some  remarks  of  Mon- 
tesquieu, in  his  "  Esprit  des  Lois,"  and  of  the  Abbe"  Winckelmann.  From  the  frequent 
references  made  to  them  by  English  writers  on  art.  for  more  than  half  a  century,  it  is  clear 
that  these  sarcasms  were  keenly  felt  by  artists,  and  not  without  influence  on  patrons. 
Barry  thought  it  necessary  to  write  a  formal  answer  to  them  in  his  "  Inquiry  into  the 
Real  and  Imaginary  Obstructions  to  the  Acquisition  of  the  Arts  in  England,"  8vo.  1775  ; 
and  it  was  in  order  to  refute  them  practically  that  he  painted  his  series  of  pictures  in  the 
Great  Room  of  the  Society  of  Arts.  (See  the  Introduction  to  his  "  Account  of  a  Series 
of  Pictures,"  &c.)  As  late  as  1791,  the  intelligent  German,  Wendeborn,  notes  that  " 
rather  singular  that  most  of  those  who  have  excelled  in  the  polite  arts  in  Eng  and  have 
been  foreigners,"  and  he  adds,  that  though  it  is  no  longer  exclusively  so,  among  tl 
artists  are  still  many  foreigners.  Wendeborn.-"  View  of  England  towards  the  clos. 
the  i8th  century/"  vo^  "•  P-  !'S- 


366  HISTORY   OF    ENGLAND. 

fellow-painters  regarded  him  as  an  interloper,  and  the  fashionable 
critic  pronounced  him  "  rather  a  writer  of  comedy  with  the  pencil  than 
a  painter,"  says  Walpole  complacently,  "  he  has  but  slender  merit."  * 
Indeed,  though  Hogarth  was  the  true  founder  of  the  English  school 
of  painting,  his  example  had  but  little  apparent  influence  upon  his 
contemporaries  or  immediate  successors,  and  it  was  no  doubt  in 
perfect  good  faith  that  Burke,  in  his  eloquent  eulogy  on  Reynolds 
—written  seven-and-twenty  years  after  Hogarth's  death — affirmed, 
and  affirmed  without  contradiction,  that  "  Sir  Joshua  Reynolds  was 
the  first  Englishman  who  added  the  praise  of  the  elegant  arts  to 
the  other  glories  of  his  country." 

But,  however  it  might  be  in  the  days  of  George  II.,  when  his 
successor  ascended  the  throne  it  must  have  been  evident  to  all  but 
the  most  prejudiced,  that  an  English  school  of  painting  was  in 
process  of  formation.  Reynolds  was  already  the  acknowledged 
leader  in  portraiture,  and  Reynolds  was  an  Englishman,  and  in  no 
sense  a  disciple  of  Kneller ;  Wilson  was  strenuously  asserting 
English  superiority  in  landscape  painting  ;  and  Gainsborough, 
though  practising  in  a  provincial  town,  was  becoming  known  in  the 
metropolis  as  a  painter  both  of  landscape  and  portrait,  in  a  style 
at  once  thoroughly  English  and  thoroughly  original. 

But  what  served  most  to  give  consistency  to  the  labours  of  the 
artists,  and  to  stimulate  their  efforts  by  bringing  them  distinctly 
before  the  public  eye,  was  the  foundation  of  the  Royal  Academy, 
with  its  great  annual  exhibition  of  works  of  art.  The  establishment 
of  an  academy  of  art  had  long  been  a  cherished  purpose  with  Eng- 
lish artists.  As  early  as  1711  a  private  academy  for  the  study  of 
art  was  instituted,  with  Sir  Godfrey  Kneller  for  its  president ;  but 
after  a  time,  differences  arose,  and  the  members  separated  into 
two  or  three  adverse  parties.  At  the  head  of  one  of  these  (the 
English  section)  was  Sir  James  Thornhill,  who,  in  1724,  opened  a 
new  academy  at  his  own  house  in  the  Piazza,  Covent  Garden, 
which  continued  till  his  death  in  1734.  Hogarth,  his  son-in-law, 
having  inherited  "  the  apparatus  of  the  academy,"  proposed  to  the 
other  society,  which  held  its  meetings  in  Greyhound  Court,  by  the 
Strand,  and  was  presided  over  by  Moser,  the  enamel  painter,  to 
unite  into  a  single  body,  and  to  take  a  suitable  room  where  thirty 
or  forty  persons  might  draw  from  the  living  model.  '  "  Attributing 
the  failures  of  the  previous  academies,"  writes  Hogarth,  "to  the 
leading  members  having  assumed  a  superiority  which  their  fellow- 
students  could  not  brook,  I  proposed  that  every  member  should 
contribute  an  equal  sum  towards  the  support  of  tho  establishment, 

*  "Anecdotes  of  Painting,"  iv.  146,  160,  ed.  1786. 


ST.  MARTIN'S  LANE  ACADEMY. 


367 


and  have  an  equal  right  to  vote  on  every  question  relative  to  its 
affairs.  By  these  regulations  the  Academy  has  now  existed  nearly 
thirty  years,  and  is,  for  every  useful  purpose,  equal  to  that  in 
France,  or  any  other."  *  This  was  the  famous  «  Academy  in  St. 
Martin's  Lane,"  so  often  referred  to  in  the  lives  of  English  paint- 
ers, and  to  which  many  of  the  best  artists  of  this  period  were 
indebted  for  no  small  portion  of  their  skill  in  drawing.  But  these 
academies,  as  well  as  others,  like  Shipley's,  and  the  Duke  of  Rich- 
mond's, were  rather  schools  for  drawing  from  the  living  model,  or 
casts  from  the  antique,  than  institutions  such  as  we  are  accustomed 
to  associate  with  the  title  of  academies  of  art.  Several  efforts  had 
been  made,  however,  to  establish  societies  of  this  more  ambitious 
order.  Before  starting  his  own  private  school,  Sir  James  Thorn- 
hill  had  submitted  to  lord  Halifax  for  the  royal  consideration,  the 
scheme  of  a  Royal  Academy,  with  apartments  for  professors, 
which  he  proposed  to  erect  "  at  the  upper  end  of  the  Mews  "— and 
pretty  nearly  therefore  on  the  site  of  the  present  Royal  Academy 
— and  which  he  estimated  would  only  cost  3139/4 

A  quarter  of  a  century  later  the  project  was  formally  renewed 
"with  the  consent,  and  indeed  at  the  desire,  both  of  artists  and 
lovers  of  art,"  by  Mr.  Gwyn,  an  architect  of  reputation,  and  one 
of  the  original  members  of  the  Royal  Academy.  The  French 
Academy  was  pointed  out  as  the  model,  though  it  was  added,  if 
an  "English  Academy  of  painting,  sculpture,  and  architecture" 
were  to  be  erected,  it  would  be  desirable  to  consult  the  laws  of  all 
similar  institutions  in  Europe.J  In  i?S3  the  members  of  the  St. 
Martin's  Lane  Academy  made  an  effort  to  raise  their  institution 
to  the  rank  of  a  "  Public  Academy  for  the  Improvement  of  Paint- 
ing, Sculpture,  and  Architecture."  It  was  in  opposition  to  this 
proposition  that  Hogarth  addressed  to  lord  Bute  the  paper  already 
quoted.  Whether  from  internal  opposition,  or  the  apathy  of  the 
artists  generally,  the  scheme  fell  to  the  ground  ;  as  did  also  a  still 
more  pretentious,  one  for  an  Academy  to  be  incorporated  by  royal 
charter,  put  forth  a  couple  of  years  later.  §  Meantime  the  public 
interest  in  art  was  steadily  gaining  strength.  The  foundation,  in 
1734,  of  the  Dilettanti  Society,  though  its  attention  was  directed 
chiefly  to  the  arts  of  ancient  Greece,  had  done  something  to  foster 

*  Paper  by  Hogarth  in  Nicholls's  Hogarth,  i.  293,  and  in  supplement  to  Ireland's 
Hogarth ;  Walpole— "  Anecdotes  of  Painting,"  v.  253  :  Edwards—"  Anecdotes  of  Paint- 
ing," Introduction,  &c. 

t  Walpole,  iv.  46. 

$  "  An  Essay  on  Design :   including    Proposals  for  erecting  a  Public  Academy, 
SYO.  1749.  „ 

§  Edwards ;  Nicholls  ;  Sir  Robert  Strange—"  On  the  Rise  of  the  Royal  Academy, 
8vo.  1775  ;  Plan  of  an  Academy,"  &c.,  410.  i 


368  HISTORY   OF    ENGLAND. 

the  spirit  of  inquiry  among  the  upper  circles  of  society  ;  and  the 
Society  of  Arts  had  done  still  more  to  diffuse  an  interest  in  art 
among  the  middle  classes.  Failing  in  establishing  an  academy,  it 
seems  to  have  occurred  to  the  artists  that  they  might  at  least  copy 
so  much  of  the  French  plan  as  to  set  up  a  public  exhibition  of 
their  works.  Accordingly  a  committee  was  formed  ;  the  great 
body  of  artists  were  appealed  to  ;  the  Society  of  Arts  proffered 
the  use  of  their  room,  and  there  on  the  2ist  of  April,  1760,  exactly 
a  hundred  years  ago,  was  opened  the  first  public  exhibition  in, 
London  of  the  works  of  living  artists.  The  works  exhibited  were' 
few  in  number,  and  the  greater  part  of  little  worth  ;  but  the  names 
of  Reynolds  and  Wilson  were  among  the  painters  ;  Roubiliac  and 
Wilton  among  the  sculptors ;  Woollett  and  Strange  among  the 
engravers,  who  contributed  examples  of  their  skill ;  and  the  public 
crowded  in  such  numbers  to  the  novel  spectacle  that  it  was  re- 
solved to  repeat  the  experiment  next  year  on  a  larger  scale.  The 
"great  room,"  Spring  Gardens,  was  accordingly  hired,  and  there, 
in  May,  1761,  was  held  the  exhibition  which  was  really  the  pro- 
genitor of  that  which  still,  every  returning  May,  attracts  to  itself 
alike  the  rank,  the  beauty,  and  the  intelligence  of  the  land.  The 
admission  was  by  catalogues,  which,  besides  serving  as  guides 
to  the  exhibition,  were  adorned  with  a  vignette  by  Wale,  and  a 
frontispiece  and  a  tailpiece  designed  by  Hogarth  and  engraved  by 
Grignon — the  one  symbolising  the  growth  of  the  arts  under  the 
fostering  care  of  Britannia  and  the  benignant  influence  of  the 
sovereign  ;  the  other  ridiculing  the  miserable  fate  of  the  decayed 
"exoticks  "  which  a  connoisseur  (typified  by  a  monkey  in  court- 
suit  and  ruffles)  magnifying  glass  in  hand,  is  vainly  watering. 
Thirteen  thousand  of  these  catalogues  were  sold  at  a  shilling  each, 
— what  would  one  be  worth  now  ? 

"  This  exhibition,"  wrote  Johnson  to  his  friend,  Baretti,*  "  has 
filled  the  heads  of  the  artists  and  the  lovers  of  art.  Surely  life,  if 
it  be  not  long,  is  tedious,  since  we  are  forced  to  call  in  ^.o  many 
trifles  to  rid  us  of  our  time — that  time  which  can  never  return." 
Next  year,  however,  the  sage  we  may  presume  took  a  less  austere 
view  of  the  matter,  for  the  preface  to  the  catalogue  was  clothed  in 
his  sonorous  sentences. 

But  the  great  moralist  was  not  alone  in  thinking  that  the  artists 
were  over  exuberant  in  their  enthusiasm.  Where  the  philosopher 
sighed,  however,  the  wits  laughed  outright.  London  vas  startled 
by  the  announcement  of  a  rival  exhibition  to  be  held  "  at  the  large 
room,  at  the  upper  end  of  Bow  Street,  Covent-garden,"  and  which 

•Boswell,  under  June,  1761. 


EXHIBITIONS   OF   PICTURES. — OF   SIGN -BOARDS.  369 

was  to  consist  of  "  Original  Paintings,  Busts,  Carved  Figures,  &c., 
by  the  Sign-Painters,"  together  with  i'such  original  designs  as 
might  be  transmitted  to  them,"  the  whole  being  "  specimens  of  the 
native  genius  of  the  nation."  The  Society  was,  of  course,  a  myth. 
The  burlesque  originated  with  the  famous  Nonsense  Club,  its  prime 
contriver  being  Bonnell  Thornton,  under  whose  superintendence  it 
was  really  carried  out  in  all  its  parts.  The  whim  took.  It  was 
seen  to  be  a  harmless  jest,  and  Hogarth  himself,  who  had  con- 
tributed some  works  to  the  Spring  Gardens  exhibition,  readily  lent 
assistance  to  the  Bow  Street  parody,  by  giving  a  touch  with  his 
pencil  where  effect  could  be  added  by  it :  thus  in  the  companion 
portraits  of  the  empress  Maria  Theresa,  and  the  king  of  Prussia, 
we  are  told  that  he  changed  the  cast  of  their  eyes  so  as  to  make 
them  leer  significantly  at  each  other.  Indeed  the  fun  was  altogether 
of  this  order.  The  apothecaries'  sign  of  "  The  Three  Gallipots  " 
had  for  its  companion  "The  Three  Coffins."  No.  16  in  the  catalogue 
was  entitled  "  A  Man  : "  while  the  picture  was  nine  tailors  at  work. 
In  No.  37,  "  A  Man  loaded  with  Mischief,"  a  fellow  was  painted 
carrying  on  his  shoulders  a  woman,  a  magpie,  and  a  monkey :  a 
sign  still  occasionally  to  be  seen  on  some  of  the  low  public-houses 
around  London,  and  on  one  in  Oxford  Street.  Some  of  the  jokes 
were  rather  broader  than  would  be  tolerated  now,  and  some  of  the 
journals  were  disposed  to  treat  the  matters  seriously;  but  the 
laughers  carried  the  day:  the  jest  was  enjoyed,  and  it  was  not 
spoiled  by  repetition.* 

Only  in  London,  and  at  such  a  time,  could  an  exhibition  of  this 
kind  have  been  possible.  Although  an  act  had  been  passed  for 
the  removal  of  such  sign-boards  as  obstructed  the  public  ways,  al- 
most every  shop  still  had  its  sign,  and  every  tradesman  strove  to 
render  his  board  more  attractive  than  his  neighbour's,  if  not  by 
beauty  of  design,  by  oddity  of  conception,  or  some  sort  of  extrava- 
gance. A  market  for  ready-made  signs  was  kept  in  Harp  Alley, 
Shoe  Lane.  But  sometimes  commissions  for  signs  were  given  to 
painters  of  established  reputation.  Wale,  for  example,  who  was 
selected  by  his  brother  artists  to  draw  the  frontispiece  for  their 
exhibition  catalogue,  who  was  one  of  the  first  members,  and  sub- 
sequently professor  of  perspective  and  librarian  of  the  Royal 
Academy,  was  not  above  painting  signs ;  Penny  and  Catton,  both 
among  the  first  academicians,  and  the  former  the  first  professor  of 
painting  with  others  of  equal  standing,  at  least  occasionally  employ- 
ed their  pencils  in  a  similar  manner.  One  of  Wale's  most  famous 
signs  was  a  portrait  of  Shakspere,  which  hung  across  the  road  at 

*  Chalmers's  "  Preface  to  the  Connoisseur." 
VOL.   VI.— 24. 


370  HISTORY   OF   ENGLAND. 

the  north-east  corner  of  Little  Russell  Street,  Drury  Lane,  anrj 
which,  with  its  elaborate  frame,  is  said  to  have  cost  five  hundred 
pounds.  This  branch  of  Art,  however,  outlived  the  exhibition  but 
a  very  few  years.  A  more  stringent  act  was  passed  for  their 
removal  (nth  Geo.  in.),  and  sign-boards  ceased  to  swing  except 
over  taverns.* 

The  members  of  the  Spring  Gardens  society  obtained  a  charter 
of  incorporation  and  the  exhibitions  went  on  with  increasing  suc- 
cess. But  the  directors  began  to  assume  more  authority  than  the 
other  members  were  r^ady  to  allow.  Differences  ensued.  The 
directors  claimed  the  right  of  filling  up  all  vacancies  in  their 
number.  This  the  members  refused  to  admit,  and  at  a  special 
meeting  sixteen  of  the  directors  were  ejected.  The  other  eight 
shortly  after  resigned.  They  were  all  men  of  position  and  in- 
fluence. West,  one  of  their  number,  was  the  especial  favourite  of 
the  king;  Chambers  was  the  royal  architect ;  and  they  felt  that  if 
they  could  obtain  the  royal  patronage  they  were  strong  enough  to 
establish  a  new  academy  more  comprehensive  in  purpose,  but 
more  exclusive  in  membership  than  that  they  had  just  left.  A 
draft  of  a  constitution  and  laws  was  drawn  up  by  Mr.  (afterwards 
sir  William)  Chambers,  with  the  assistance  of  West,  Moser,  and 
Cotes,  and  submitted  to  the  king,  who,  entering  with  great  zeal 
into  the  project,  directed  that  the  new  institution  should  be  called 
the  Royal  Academy,  and  placed  under  his  immediate  protection 
and  patronage.  By  the  "  Instrument  of  Institution  "  the  society 
was  to  consist  of  "  40  academicians  chosen  from  among  the  most 
able  and  respectable  artists  resident  in  Great  Britain  ; "  20  asso- 
ciates from  whom  future  academicians  were  to  be  selected  ;  and 
six  associate  engravers.  There  is  to  be  an  annual  exhibition  of 
works  of  art,  which  is  to  be  open  to  all  artists  to  contribute  works, 
subject  to  the  approval  of  a  committee  of  selection.  Schools  of 
painting  and  of  drawing  from  the  life  and  from  casts  are  provided, 
which  are  to  be  open  without  charge  to  all  students  who  have 
acquired  proper  rudimentary  instruction,  and  who  conform  to  the 
rules  of  the  institution  :  and  professors  are  annually  to  read  courses 
of  lectures  on  the  principles  of  the  arts  of  painting,  sculpture,  and 
architecture,  and  also  on  anatomy  and  perspective.  Hogarth  was 
dead  ;  but  had  he  been  living  he  would  not  have  joined  the  infant 
academy,  "  considering, "  as  he  wrote  to  lord  Bute,  "  the  electing 
presidents,  professors,  &c.,  as  a  ridiculous  imitation  of  the  foolish 
parade  of  the  French  Academy."  Reynolds  held  aloof  from  all 
the  preliminary  proceedings,  and  it  was  not  until  he  was  apprised 

*  Edwards — Introduction,  and  notice  of  Wale  ;  Smith's""  Anecdotes  of  Nolleksns,"  &c. 


ROYAL   ACADEMY. — FIRST   EXHIBITION.  37! 

that  it  was  the  wish  of  the  king  that  he  should  be  its  first  president, 
and  that  it  was  his  majesty's  intention  on  his  installation  into  that 
office  to  confer  upon  him  the  honour  of  knighthood,  that  he  con- 
sented to  join  the  new  society.  The  foundation  of  the  Royal 
Academy  dates  from  the  loth  of  December,  1768;  its  first  exhibi- 
tion was  held  at  the  auction  room  in  Pall  Mall,  in  1769.  The  list 
of  the  original  members  is  a  curious  index  to  the  state  of  art  in 
England  at  that  time.  Of  the  thirty-three  whose  names  are 
inserted  in  the  first  catalogue,  eight  or  nine  are  foreigners ;  two 
are  ladies  ;  some  are  only  known  as  designers  and  engravers  ; 
some  were  coach  and  sign-painters — most  are  mere  names  now : 
probably  not  more  than  half-a-dozen  would  be  recognised  except 
by  the  student  of  the  literature  of  art. 

Equally  curious  is  it  to  compare  the  first  thin,  loosely  printed 
catalogue  of  16  pages  with  one  of  the  present  day.  Besides  the 
thirty-three  Academicians,  only  seventeen  non-members  contribute. 
There  are  in  all  but  136  entries,  and  among  these  some  are  of  en- 
gravings, and  others  of  drawings  in  crayons  and  "stained  drawings." 
No  quotations  enliven  the  dreary  lists  of  '  portraits,'  '  flower-pieces,' 
and  'landskips';  but  occasionally  the  descriptions  are  as  curiously 
precise  as  though  the  painter  supposed  his  picture  would  be  carried 
for  comparison  to  the  very  spot  it  was  intended  to  represent.  The 
fashionable  landscape-painter  George  Barret, — one  who  was  rich 
whilst  Wilson  starved — described  his  performances  with  the  pre- 
cision of  a  topographer.  On  the  other  hand  Wilson  has  nothing 
appende'd  to  either  of  his  three  pictures  but  the  single  word  a 
"  Landskip."  Reynolds  sent  four  pictures,  all  portraits,  and  all  in 
classic  guise,  and  Gainsborough  had  also  four  pictures.  West 
contributed  two  compositions.  Angelica  Kauffman,  R.A.,  had  four 
classical  subjects,  and  Mary  Moser,  R.A.,  two  "  flower  pieces." 

As  soon  as  Somerset  House,  erected  on  the  site  of  one  of  the 
,  royal  palaces,  was  completed,  the  Royal  Academy  removed  to  a  suite 
of  rooms  which  the  king  had  caused  to  be  constructed  in  the  new 
building  expressly  for  their  use,  and  there  the  annual  exhibitions 
continued  to  be  held  till  the  Academy  was  removed  to  the  National 
Gallery.  The  first  exhibition  in  Somerset  House  was  held  in  1 780, 
and  the  progress  from  the  opening  exhibition  eleven  years  earlier 
is  very  marked.  While  the  Academicians  who  exhibit  remain  in 
number  the  same,  the  non-academicians  have  increased  to  183 ;  the 
number  of  entries  in  the  catalogue  is  489,  and  the  character  of  the 
works  exhibited  is  evidently  higher.  Besides  the  names  enumerated 
above,  we  now  meet  with' some  who  are  destined  to  sustain  the 
reputation  of  the  school  in  the  succeeding  generation :  J.  S.  Copley, 


372  HISTORY   OF    ENGLAND. 

R.A.  elect  (the  father  of  lord  Lyndhurst);  Fuseli;  de  Loutherbourg; 
Zoffany ;  Stothard  ;  Wyatt  the  architect ;  and  the  sculptors  Banks, 
Bacon  and  Flaxman.  At  this  time  there  was  no  limit  to  the  number 
of  works  sent  in,  and  we  find  Gainsborough  on  this  occasion  con- 
tributing six  large  landscapes  and  ten  portraits,  whilst  in  the  next 
year  Reynolds  sent  no  fewer  than  one-and-twenty  pictures,  including 
his  Dido,  and  the  famous  portraits  of  the  ladies  Waldegrave  for 
which  Walpole  (though  not  without  grumbling)  paid  the  artist  a 
thousand  guineas — being  the  largest  sum  up  to  that  time  ever  paid 
to  an  English  portrait  painter. 

When  the  Royal  Academy  took  possession  of  its  apartments  in 
Somerset  House  it  stood  alone  as  the  visible  exponent  of  British 
art.  The  Incorporated  Society  had  persisted  for  some  years  in  a 
vain  struggle,  but  from  the  opening  of  the  Royal  Academy  no  new 
member  joined  its  ranks ;  its  exhibitions  dwindled  rapidly  into  in- 
significance ;  and  it  eventually  succumbed  before  its  too  powerful 
rival.  The  humble  Free  Society  which  had  clung  like  a  parasite  to 
the  Society  of  Arts  had  also  perished  of  inanition.  The  Academy, 
though  often  assailed  from  without,  and  not  always  at  peace  within, 
has  continued  in  an  unbroken  career  of  prosperity  down  to  the  pres- 
ent hour — unchanged  in  its  constitution,  and  without  increase  in  its 
members,  though  everything  around  it  has  changed,  and  the  number 
of  professional  artists  has  increased  fifty-fold  since  its  foundation.* 

Among  the  founders  of  the  Royal  Academy  were  indeed  men  of 
no  common  order  ;  and  the  glory  which  they  shed  around  it  must 
have  done  much  to  ensure  its  firm  establishment.  Reynolds, with 
whom  the  early  years  of  the  Academy  are  most  intimately  associ- 
ated, was  a  painter  who  at  once  raised  English  portraiture  from  sheer 
mindless  mimicry  to  a  level  with  that  of  the  noblest  days  of  art. 
Without  attempting  to  rival  the  great  masters  in  the  higher  walks  of 
painting,  he  strove  to  compete  with  the  worthiest  in  his  own  peculiar 
line.  He  has  been  condemned  for  not  attempting  loftier  themes, 

*  The  Academy  has  had  no  historian  ;  its  origin  and  progress  must  be  traced  too  often 
by  the  light  of  unfriendly  pilots,  amid  all  sorts  of  muddy  banks  and  quicksands.  The  fol- 
lowing are  a  few  of  the  sources  from  which  we  have  derived  assistance  :  "  Abstract  of  the 
Instrument  of  the  Institution  and  Laws  of  the  Royal  Academy  of  Arts,"  8vo.  Load. 
1797  ;  "  Catologues  of  the  Royal  Academy  ;  "  "  The  conduct  of  the  Royal  Academicians 
while  members  of  the  Incorporated  Society  of  Artists  of  Great  Britain,  viz.,  from  1760  to 
their  expulsion  in  1769.  With  some  part  of  their  transactions  since,"  8vo.  1771,  and 
Abstracts  of  Papers  of  Incorporated  Society  published  in  the  "  Literary  Panorama," 
1808  ;  Gait's  "  Life  of  Benjamin  West,"  vol.  ii.  chap,  iv.,  where  full  particulars  respect- 
ing the  foundation  of  the  Academy  are.  given  on  the  authority  of  West  himself,  who 
conducted  the  negotiations  with  the  king  ;  the  Lives  of  Sir  Joshua  Reynolds,  by  Malone, 
Northcote,  and  Cotton  ;  Barry's  Works  ;  Pye  on  "  Patronage  of  British  Art  ;  "  "  Re- 
ports (with  evidence)  of  Committees  of  House  of  Commons,"  1834  and  1836  ;  Hogarth, 
Sir  Robert  Strange,  Nicholls,  Edwards,  Cunningham,  &c. 


REYNOLDS. — GAINSBOROUGH. 


373 


but  we  may  in  these  days  be  well  content  that  he  employed  his 
pencil  in  handing  down  the  portraits  of  the  statesmen,  soldiers,  and 
writers,  and  of  the  matrons,  maids,  and  children  among  whom  he 
lived  and  moved,  rather  than  in  fabricating  from  the  recipes  and 
models  of  the  painting-room  eighteenth-century  Phrynes,  Venuses, 
and  Epaminondases,  or  even  Apostles  and  Madonnas.  For  not 
only  was  Reynolds  the  greatest  colourist  that  England  had  ever 
seen,  but  her  most  intellectual  portrait-painter,  and  she  had  men, 
women,  and  children  well  worthy  the  best  pencil  that  could  be  found 
to  hand  down  their  features  to  posterity.  But  whilst  Reynolds  could 
do  this,  he  wanted,  for  what  are  called  the  higher  branches  of  art, 
alike  sufficient  technical  training,  power  of  studious  application, 
historical  insight,  and  poetic  imagination.  All  that  he  aimed  to  do 
he  did  perfectly.  His  mastery  over  his  materials  is  the  more  surpris- 
ing the  more  his  works  are  studied.  His  touch  is  always  sure  and 
firm,  yet  light  as  a  zephyr.  His  clearness  of  perception  is  almost 
perfect.  To  every  part  is  given  just  the  tone  and  touch  and  surface 
which  most  befits  it.  Where  his  colours  have  not  lost  their  original 
hue,  they  glow  with  a  sombre  splendour,  which,  though  borrowed 
neither  from  Flanders  nor  Venice,  reminds  the  spectator  of  the 
greatest  masters  of  both  those  countries.  Then  what  fascination 
in  his  female  forms  and  features,  how  charming  his  children,  how 
manly  his  men  !  Reynolds  lived  always  in  easy  intercourse  with  the 
most  distinguished  of  his  time,  and  something  of  the  genial  grace  of 
such  companionship  is  visible  in  his  works,  He  did  not  copy  a  face 
with  camera-like  particularity,  but  he  always  gave  what  was  most 
essential  :  his  likenesses  are  not  perhaps  always  the  most  faithful 
rendering  of  the  man  in  his  ordinary  daily  life,  but  they  bring  out 
his  most  intellectual  and  characteristic  aspect.  Burke  was  mistaken 
when  he  said  that  Reynolds  was  the  first  Englishman  who  added  the 
praise  of  the  elegant  arts  to  the  other  glories  of  his  country.  But 
if  he  was  not  that,  we  cannot  but  regard  him,  when  we  reflect  on  the 
influence  which  he  exerted  alike  by  his  pencil,  his  writings,  and 
his  character,  as  the  true  founder  of  the  English  school  of  painting. 
Gainsborough  had  far  less  technical  power  than  Reynolds,  and 
in  portraiture  far  less  variety.  But  if  he  could  not  attain  the  eleva- 
tion of  Reynolds's  Mrs.  Siddons,  or  Cornelia,  he  could  more  than 
equal  Reynolds  in  depicting  the  lighter  phases  of  female  beauty. 
Those  who  saw  Gainsborough's  portraits  in  the  wonderful  collec- 
tion brought  together  last  year  in  the  British  .  Institution,  or  the 
exquisite  specimens  of  his  pencil  in  the  great  Manchester  Exhibi- 
tion, will  be  little  likely  to  gainsay  his  powers  as  a  painter  of  female 
portraits.  But  it  is^fter  all  as  a  landscape  painter,  and  the  paintel 


374  HISTORY   OF   ENGLAND. 

of  those  delightful  "  Cottage  Doors,"  and  similar  homely  rustic  sub- 
jects which  he  painted  with  such  unrivalled  skill,  that  he  ranks 
supreme.  He  was  the  first  painter  of  the  poetry  of  homely  Eng- 
lish scenery — the  first  who  showed  how  the  shallow  ford,  the  village 
green,  the  leafy  woodside,  or  shady  river's  bank  might  on  canvas 
delight  the  eye  and  stir  the  memory  and  stimulate  the  fancv — and 
in  his  own  way  he  has  found  no  compeer  and  no  successor. 

By  those  whose  tastes  lead  them  to  prefer  what  is  called  classic 
landscape,  Wilson  has  always  been  placed  above  Gainsborough 
as  a  painter.  But  Wilson  was  less  original  and  less  native  in 
style.  Italian  scene  with  Phaetons  or  Apollos  in  the  clouds,  and 
Niobes  on  the  earth,  will  never  come  home  to  the  common  under- 
standing. Wilson  was  neglected  whilst  alive  ;  he  has  been  perhaps 
over-praised  since  his  death.  Like  Gainsborough,  he  was  altogeth- 
er a  painter.  But  there  was  less  spontaneousness  in  his  constitu- 
tion. Even  his  English  scenes  are  painted  on  an  Italian  model.  If 
he  looked  abroad  on  nature  it  was  to  consider  how  the  scenery 
would  "  compose"  into  a  picture.  The  men  and  women  who  walk- 
ed about  were  to  him  but  "  figures."  He  was  a  great  painter,  but 
his  greatness  was  conventional.  Yet  few  landscape-painters  of  any 
country  have  had  a  finer  eye  for  grandeur  of  form  and  largeness  of 
effect,  and  if  it  be  to  Gainsborough  that  we  can  trace  the  love  of 
simple  unsophisticated  English  scenery,  truth  and  freshness  of 
colour,  and  directness  of  imitation,  which  have  ever  since  charac- 
terised English  landscape-painting — the  truest  and  noblest  school 
of  landscape  that  has  yet  been  seen — it  is  to  Wilson  that  we  are 
indebted  for  its  preservation  in  its  early  stages  from  vulgarity  and 
commonplace. 

Reynolds,  Wilson,  and  Gainsborough  were  born  within  a  few 
years  of  each  other.  The  other  painter,  whose  name  is  most  close- 
ly associated  with  them  in  these  early  days  of  English  art,  who 
succeeded  Reynolds  as  president  of  the  Royal  Academy,  and  who 
must,  we  fear,  be  regarded  as  the  founder  of  English  historical 
painting,  Benjamin  West,  was  some  years  their  junior.  A  native 
of  Pennsylvania^  then  an  English  colony,  he  came  to  London  at 
the  age  of  five-and-twenty,  and  was  introduced  by  Drummond,  arch- 
bishop of  York,  to  George  III.,  who,  pleased  with  the  simplicity 
of  his  quaker  manners,  and  the  grave  religious  character  of  his  pic- 
tures and  sketches,  at  once  took  the  young  American  into  his  favour. 
West  had  spent  three  years  in  Italy  in  the  study  of  the  old  masters, 
and  he  had  acquired  a  fatal  facility  of  composition  and  execution. 
His  pictures,  when  scriptural,  were  always  illustrative  of  passages 
which  stirred  the  sympathies  of  every  person  of  religious  feelings, 


WEST. 


375 


and  they  were  so  painted  that  all  could  at  once  understand  them  -, 
and  his  historical  and  classical  subjects  were  hardly  more  recondite 
and  were  equally  clear.  The  king  saw  in  them  pictures  he  could 
feel  and  comprehend.  West  received  an  unlimited  commission, 
and  as  long  as  the  king  retained  his  faculties,  West  was  duly  paid 
his  salary  of  iooo/.  a  year.  The  royal  patronage  would  alone  have 
insured  the  painter  success,  but  the  same  qualities  which  delighted 
the  king  delighted  a  large  section  of  his  subjects  also ;  and  it  was 
the  popular  belief  that  England  possessed  in  West  another  Raffaelle. 
That  belief  has  long  passed  away,  and  the  reaction  has  been  severe. 
West  never  rose  above  mediocrity,  and  mediocrity  is  as  fatal  to  the 
painter  as  the  poet.  But  worse  painters  have  had  a  more  enduring 
celebrity,  and  some  pictures  of  West's  ought  to  save  him  from 
oblivion.  One  of  these  is  his  celebrated  "  Death  of  General  Wolfe," 
in  which,  in  spite  of  the  warnings  of  his  friends,  and  it  is  said  the 
united  and  semi-official  protest  of  the  president  of  the  Royal  Acad- 
emy and  the  archbishop  of  York,*  West,  instead  of  clothing  the 
hero  and  his  associates  in  the  costumes  of  Greece  or  Rome,  or 
that  conventioual  "  drapery"  which  painters  were  accustomed  to 
substitute  for  the  dress  of  any  particular  age  or  country,  ventured 
on  the  daring  innovation  of  making  the  actors  wear  the  actual  coats 
and  cocked  hats  in  which  they  fought.  The  picture  was  painted 
with  unusual  care,  referred  to  an  event  which  stirred  every  heart, 
and  was  treated  in  a  manner  which  men  of  all  conditions  could 
appreciate.  It  had  an  immense  success.  The  king  was  delighted  ; 
Reynolds  was  converted ;  but  the  painter's  brother  artists— ;hard- 
est  of  all  to  satisfy — were  not  convinced.  Barry  undertook  to  show 
how  the  event  should  have  been  treated  in  the  classic  style.  He 
painted  the  scene,  and  people  were  amazed  at  beholding  Wolfe  and 
his  grenadiers  braving  the  climate  of  Canada  as  well  as  the  bay- 
onets of  Montcalm  in  a  state  of  nudity.  But  if  Barry  outraged  all 
"  the  proprieties,"  West,  some  thought,  had  not  wholly  resisted 
temptation.  He  had  painted  the  dying  general  in  the  midst  of  his 
officers,  who  were  grouped  about  him,  not  as  they  must  have  been 
under  such  circumstances,  but  plainly  with  a  view  to  scenic  effect, 
and  he  had  brought  into  the  foreground  a  naked  Indian,  though  no 
such  person  was  actually  there.  Penny,  then  professor  of  painting 
at  the  academy,  undertook  to  depict  the  hero's  death  as  it  really 
occurred— almost  alone  and  in  the  rear  of  the  fight.  But  he  too 
got  entangled  in  conventionalisms,  and  was,  moreover,  incompetent 
to  grapple  with  the  theme,  and  West's  triumph  was  complete, 
"  The  Death  of  Wolfe,"  we  may  say  now,  went  but  a  little  way 

*  See  Gait's  "  Life  of  West." 


376  HISTORY   OF    ENGLAND. 

towards  settling  the  still  unsettled  question  of  the  extent  of  licence 
allowable  to  the  painter  of  a  familiar  historical  scene  ;  but  it  at  least 
put  an  end  to  the  more  outrageous  anomalies  previously  tolerated, 
and  the  historical  painter  was  thenceforth  in  this  country  under- 
stood to  be  to  some  extent  amenable  to  the  laws  which  govern  the 
historical  writer. 

It  had  now  become  a  favourite  project  to  adorn  our  churches 
and  public  buildings  with  paintings,  after  the  fashion  of  those  of 
the  continent.  It  was  decided  to  make  the  experiment  on  St. 
Paul's.  The  leading  painters,  with  West  and  Reynolds  at  their 
head,  offered  at  their  own  cost  to  cover  the  bare  walls  of  the  metro- 
politan cathedral  with  paintings  of  the  leading  events  of  Old  and 
New  Testament  history,  and  the  king  and  the  archbishop  of  Can- 
terbury gave  their  cordial  adhesion  to  the  proposal.  But  the  bis- 
hop of  London,  whose  veto  was  decisive,  sternly  refused  his 
sanction,  and  the  whole  scheme  fell  to  the  ground, — thereby,  said 
the  enthusiastic  professors,  throwing  back  historical  painting  in 
England  for  a  century.  That  such  willing  service  might  not  be 
lost,  however,  the  Society  of  Arts  (taking  into  account  the  profits 
derived  by  the  exhibition  of  the  pictures  painted  for  the  Foundling 
Hospital)  invited  the  six  painters,  designated  by  the  Royal  Acade- 
my to  execute  the  paintings  in  St.  Paul's,  with  four  others,  to  paint 
around  their  great  room  ten  large  pictures  from  English  History ; 
for  which  they  were  to  be  renumeratedby  the  proceeds  of  an  exhibi- 
tion of  them  when  finished.  The  painters  declined ;  but  Barry,  who 
had  been  burning  to  remove  from  English  art  the  reproach  cast  upon 
it  by  Winckelmann  and  Du  Bos,  proffered  to  cover  the  entire  room 
himself  with  a  series  of  large  allegorical  paintings  illustrative  of 
Human  Culture.  The  Society  accepted  his  offer,  and  though  he 
had  but  sixteen  shillings  in  his  pocket,  he  commenced  his  mighty 
task,  working  at  odd  jobs  for  the  booksellers  by  night  to  procure 
the  sustenance  necessary  to  carry  on  the  work  of  the  day.  After 
labouring  almost  without  intermission  for  nearly  seven  years,  he 
brought  his  undertaking  to  a  close.  A  work  like  this  was  almost 
heroic:  and  out  of  respect  for  the  man  who  thus  braved  neglect 
and  poverty  that  he  might  carry  out  worthily  his  patriotic  enter- 
prise, we  would  fain  persuade  ourselves  that  the  work  was  not  a 
failure.  Happily  for  his  own  peace  of  mind,  Barry  himself  never 
suspected  that  he  missed  his  aim.  In  his  celebrated  letter  to  the 
Dilettanti  Society,  he  speaks  without  stint  of  its  "public  interest, 
and  ethical  utility  of  subject ;  castigated  purity  of  Grecian  design, 
beauty,  grace,  vigorous  effect,  and  execution."  We  read  those 
words  and  turn  with  amazement  from  the  pictures.  But  we  look 


STRANGE.— WOLLETT.  377 

again  and  see  ample  evidence  of  genius,  though  of  the  genius  that 
is  near  allied  to  madness.  Few  more  efforts  were  made  to  achieve 
success  in  mural  painting.  It  was  reserved  for  our  own  day,  and 
with  another  material,  to  show  what  English  artists  could  effect  in 
that  branch  of  art.  The  frescoes  of  the  New  Houses  of  Parlia- 
ment, and  perhaps  even  more  that  in  the  great  hall  of  Lincoln's 
Inn,  have  proved  that  if  fitting  opportunity  offers,  the  skill  will  not 
be  wanting  to  produce  works  worthy  of  the  nation.  But  seeing 
what  was  in  the  i8th  century  regarded  as  the  ideal  of  historical 
painting — looking  at  the  cold  mediocrity  of  West  and  his  followers 
on  the  one  hand,  and  the  unchecked  extravagance  of  Barry  and 
Fuseli  on  the  other, — it  is  a  matter  rather  for  rejoicing  than  regret 
that  our  churches  and  public  places  were  not  adorned  with  such 
illustrations  of  sacred  and  secular  history  as  the  painters  of  that 
day  must  have  produced. 

If  we  were  attempting  more  than  a  few  illustrations  of  the 
state  of  art,  there  are  many  other  painters  who  would  call  for  re- 
cord. Romney,  whose  life  is  a  romance,  and  who  for  a  while 
divided  the  town  with  Reynolds,  when  Thurlow,  like  his  sovereign, 
declared  himself  "  of  the  Romney  faction  ;"  Fuseli,  who  imported 
into  England  the  wildest  extravagances  of  Germany  ;  Paul  Sand- 
by,  by  many  regarded  as  the  father  of  that  essential  English  art, 
water-colour  painting;  Wright  of  Derby,  and  many  another  might 
afford  matter  for  remark :  to  say  nothing  of  those  who  succeeded 
them,  and  reflected  for  the  most  part  more  or  less  strongly  their 
genius  or  their  manner — Northcote,  Opie,  Copley,  Stothard,  and 
those  others  of  equal  fame  who  handed  down  the  practice  and  the 
traditions  of  their  elders  to  the  painters  of  our  own  day. 

Nor  should  those  who  by  means  of  the  art  of  Engraving  assist- 
ed in  diffusing  still  more  widely  the  works  of  the  great  artists  who 
adorned  this  period,  be  left  unmentioned.  Sir  Robert  Strange  and 
William  Woollett  did  for  English  line  engraving  all  that  Reynolds 
and  his  associates  accomplished  for  painting.  More  they  could 
not  do  in  their  own  country ;  but  beyond  its  limits  they  perhaps 
did  more.  English  pictures,  except  in  special  instances,  never 
found  their  way  across  the  channel ;  but  the  engravings  of  Strange 
and  Woollett  were  eagerly  purchased  all  over  the  continent.  Both 
were  men  of  rare  r  enius.  Strange  confined  his  attention  to  his- 
torical engraving,  and  delighted  in  translating  the  works  of  the 
great  masters  of  old.  Woollett  chiefly  engraved  landscapes,  and 
especially  those  of  British  painters.  Strange  learnt  the  art  from 
Le  Bas,  one  of  the  most  distinguished  French  engravers  of  the 
day,  and  he  cultivated  his  powers  by  diligent  study  in  the  great 


37§  HISTORY   OF    ENGLAND. 

centres  of  Italian  art.  But  whilst  no  engraver  ever  entered  more 
into  the  spirit  of  the  painters  whose  works  he  copied,  his  style  was 
decidedly  his  own.  Nearly  all  his  plates  were  executed  from  draw- 
ings made  by  himself  from  the  original  pictures  ;  and  much  as  we 
may  admire  them  when  seen  apart,  it  is  only  on  examining  such 
a  collection  of  his  engravings  as  that  in  the  Print  Room  of  the 
British  Museum,  where  they  fill  three  folio  volumes,  that  his  re- 
markable industry  and  fertility  of  resource,  as  well  as  his  artistic 
feeling  and  the  brilliancy  of  his  technical  skill,  can  be  fairly  ap- 
preciated. Woollett  owed  little  to  any  instructor.  His  teacher 
was  an  obscure  English  engraver,  and  he  never  studied  out  of  his 
native  country.  But  he  lived  at  a  time  when  England  was  putting 
forth  her  strength  in  art,  and  he  fully  participated  in  the  movement. 
Like  our  landscape  painters,  he  refused  to  be  bound  by  established 
practices.  The  effect  he  desired  to  produce  he  took  what  seemed 
the  surest  means  of  producing,  without  regard  to  its  being  the  most 
regular.  Etching,  the  graver,  and  the  needle  he  freely  used,  as 
each  seemed  the  most  efficient  for  the  purpose  in  view.  The  best 
of  his  plates  consequently  exhibit  a  union  of  force  and  delicacy 
scarcely  to  be  found  elsewhere  in  landscape  engravings.  His 
characterization  of  surface  is  nearly  perfect.  The  landscapes  of 
Woollett  indeed  gave  a  decided  impulse  to  landscape  engraving 
abroad  as  well  as  at  home.  He  engraved  the  figure  also  with 
great  ability,  and  his  plate  from  West's  "  Death  of  Wolfe  "  is  gen- 
erally regarded  as  a  masterpiece .  But  it  is  in  his  landscapes  that 
his  great  originality  and  genius  are  shown,  and  Woollett  is  as 
justly  considered  the  founder  of  the  English  school  of  landscape 
engraving  as  Strange  is  of  that  of  historical  engraving.  Several 
other  English  line  engravers,  of  very  considerable  skill,  flourished 
during  the  same  period,  of  whom  it  will  be  enough  to  name  Ma- 
jor, who  wrote  himself  engraver  to  the  king ;  Basire,  Byrne, 
Rooker,  the  able  but  unhappy  Ryland,  and  the  best  of  all  our  por- 
trait engravers  William  Sharp,  who  together  created  a  school  of 
line  engravers  which  though  not  always  adequately  patronized, 
has  continued1  with  unabated  power  to  the  present  day. 

In  mezzotint  engraving — a  branch  of  engraving  in  which  Eng- 
land has  always  maintained  the  lead — the  first  practitioner  was 
James  MacArdell,  who  did  for  the  portraits  of  Reynolds,  at  least 
all  that  his  predecessor,  John  Smith,  performed  for  those  of  Knel- 
ler.  With  MacArdell,  or  immediately  succeeding  him,  practised 
Fisher,  Valentine  Green,  Raphael  Smith,  W.  Dickinson,  Earlom, 
and  the  Watsons,  James,  Thomas,  and  Caroline ;  whilst  Paul 
Sandby  showed  the  capabilities  of  the  infant  art  of  aquatinta  en- 


ILLUSTRATED    BOOKS.  379 

graving.  Along  with  the  admirable  native  engravers,  several  dis- 
tinguished foreigners  found  ample  employment.  Of  these  the 
chief  were  Bartolozzi,  best  known  by  the  "  chalk"  engravings  after 
his  own  designs,  and  the  drawings  of  the  great  masters ;  Vivares, 
unrivalled  for  the  freedom  of  his  foliage,  and  the  graceful  ease  with 
which  he  rendered  the  landscapes  of  Lorraine,  Poussin,  and  Gains- 
borough ;  Grignon,  who  seems  to  have  been  equally  expert  in 
every  class  of  subjects  and  in  every  style ;  and  Gravelot,  now  re- 
collected only  by  his  bookplates. 

English  engravings  had  indeed  become  an  important  branch  of 
commerce.  If  we  may  credit  the  statement  made  in  the  House  of 
Lords  by  lord  Suffolk  in  his  speech  on  Boydell's  '  Lottery  Bill,' 
"  the  revenue  coming  into  this  country  from  this  source  at  one 
time  exceeded  26o,ooo/.  per  annum."  Boydell  was  the  principal 
agent  in  promoting  this  traffic.  Himself  an  engraver,  though  of 
but  small  talent,  he  was  led  by  observing  the  success  of  Hogarth's 
plates  to  speculate  on  the  possibility  of  establishing  a  print-selling 
business  on  an  extended  scale.  He  tried  and  succeeded,  and  with 
every  fresh  success  his  boldness  increased,  until  he  was  able  to 
assert  that  he  had  laid  out  "  above  350,0007.  in  promoting  the  fine 
arts  in  this  country."*  On  the  plates  issued  by  him  he  employed 
engravers  of  the  highest  standing ;  and  he  set  the  example  of  pub- 
lishing illustrated  books  of  a  more  splendid  character  than  had  pre- 
viously been  issued  by  any  English  publisher.  By  his  fellow 
citizens  he  was  elected  alderman,  and  then  lord-mayor,  but  his 
highest  ambition  was  to  produce  an  edition  of  Shakspere  which 
should  in  its  illustrations  be  the  most  perfect  which  the  arts  of  the 
country  could  produce.  To  effect  this  he  invited  the  principal  pain- 
ters of  the  day  to  paint  finished  oil  pictures  of  incidents  selected  from 
the  various  plays  ;  and  to  contain  the  pictures  so  produced  he 
built  a  spacious  suite  of  rooms  in  Pall  Mall,  which  he  designated 
the  Shakspere  Gallery,  but  which  is  now  the  Gallery  of  the  British 
Institution.  The  engravings  as  published  formed  a  magnificent 
work  in  nine  folio  volumes.  The  pictures,  with  the  gallery  which 
contain  them.  Boydell  intended  to  have  bequeathed  to  the  nation  ; 
but  commercial  losses  arising  out  of  the  French  revolution  compel- 
led him  to  sell  them,  and  he  obtained  the  sanction  of  parliament  for 
disposing  of  them  by  lottery.  Boydell  was  of  course  not  alone  in 
his  enterprise.  His  success  stimulated  other  publishers,  and  some 
of  them  produced  works  scarcely  less  important  than  his  own. 

In  the  early  years  of  the  reign  of  George  III.  there  was  only 
one  English  sculptor  of  any  reputation,  and  his  celebrity  arose 

*  Petitions  to  House  of  Commons—"  Annual  Register,"  vol.  xlvi. 


380  HISTORY   OF   ENGLAND. 

rather  from  the  paucity  of  competition  than  from  his  own  ability. 
Into  what  strange  defiances  of  common  sense  the  lack  of  imagina- 
tion will  lead  artists  who  are  poetic  by  rule,  the  monuments  of 
Joseph  Wilton  which  disfigure  our  metropolitan  cathedrals  will  be 
sufficient  to  convince  any  one  who  will  take  the  trouble  to  examine 
them.  Banks  (173 5-1 805)  some  thirteen  years  the  junior  of  Wilton, 
was  our  first  great  English  sculptor.  He  loved  to  work  on  classic 
themes,  and  Reynolds  said  that  he  had  the  mind  of  an  ancient 
Greek.  But  his  poetic  subjects  brought  him  only  the  poet's  fare, 
and  like  most  of  his  craft  who  find  portraiture  irksome  he  had  to 
turn  for  profit  to  the  sculpture  of  monuments.  His  real  strength 
however,  lay  in  his  poetic  conception ;  his  monumental  groups  are 
for  the  most  part  of  inferior  value — the  exceptions  being  when 
there  was  something  to  call  for  simple  poetic  treatment,  as  in  the 
exquisite  monument  to  a  child,  Penelope  Boothby,  in  Ashborne 
Church,  a  work  which  when  in  the  exhibition  room  at  Somerset 
House,  by  its  gentle  pathos  moved  to  tears  the  crowd  that  daily 
surrounded  it.  John  Bacon  (i  740-1 799)  was  a  more  popular,  and 
in  a  pecuniary  point  of  view,  far  more  successful  sculptor  than 
Banks  ;  but  in  all  the  higher  qualities  of  his  art  greatly  his  inferior. 
To  his  chisel  we  owe  a  very  large  proportion  of  the  public  monu- 
ments erected  in  the  latter  part  of  the  last  century. 

Later  in  date  than  the  sculptors  just  noticed,  came  one  greater 
than  either.  Had  his  powers  of  execution  been  equal  to  his  con- 
ception, John  Flaxman  would  have  been  one  of  the  very  greatest 
sculptors  of  modern  times.  As  it  is,  in  chastened  affluence  of 
imagination,  purity  and  grace,  he  has  hardly  a  superior.  His  was 
a  fancy  which  could  soar  into  the  highest  heaven  of  invention,  yet 
stoop  without  discredit  to  the  humblest  task-work.  Some  of  his 
grander  productions  like  the  Archangel  Michael  and  Satan  (at 
Petworth)  are  the  glory  of  the  English  school  of  sculpture ;  his 
designs  from  Homer  (and  there  are  others'  scarcely  less  noble  or 
beautiful)  have  won  the  admiration  of  the  best  critics  throughout 
Europe  ;  yet  he  was  ready  to  model  a  porcelain  cup  or  plate  for 
Wedgwood,  and  in  doing  so  never  failed  to  produce  one  that  an 
ancient  Greek  would  have  beheld  with  delight.  Along  with  our 
three  famous  countrymen  lived  and  laboured  a  Dutchman,  if  not 
more  famous  than  they,  far  more  the  favourite  of  fortune.  This 
was  Joseph  Nollekens,  a  carver  of  Grecian  deities,  the  best  of 
•which  is  renowned  as  the 'long-sided  Venus.'  But  if  he  missed 
the  ideal,  he  never  missed  sober  every-day  reality.  He  was  in 
portrait-sculpture  what  Reynolds  was  in  portrait-painting,  and  he 
prospered  accordingly.  He  died  at  a  ripe  old  age  worth  200,000!, 
— which  is  a  fair  measure  of  his  ability. 


ARCHITECTURE. TAYLOR,    CHAMBERS.  381 

We  have  traced  *  the  progress  of  Architecture  from  Wren  down 
to  Kent  and  Burlington.  From  the  era  of  churches  and  mansions, 
we  have  arrived  at  that  of  public  and  commercial  buildings.  Sir 
Robert  Taylor  was  the  leading  architect  when  George  III.  ascen- 
ded the  throne.  He  was  a  man  of  taste  and  industry,  but  not  of 
much  original  power :  the  wings  he  added  to  the  Bank,  an  adapta- 
tion of  a  design  by  Bramante,  were  much  admired  at  the  time,  but 
were  ruthlessly  swept  away  by  his  successor  as  bank  architect,  sir 
John  Soane.  Contemporary  with  Taylor  was  Dance,  the  architect 
of  the  Mansion  House  and  of  Newgate — the  latter  a  work  of  most 
prison  like  character.  The  Woods  (father  and  son),  of  Bath,  and 
the  brothers  Adam,  of  Edinburgh  an  1  London,  call  for  honourable 
notice  for  their  efforts  to  raise  the  character  of  our  street  architec- 
ture. Bath,  "  that  beautiful  city  which  charms  even  eyes  familiar 
with  the  masterpieces  of  Bramante  and  Palladio,"  f  may  be  said  to 
have  been  created  by  the  Woods  :  the  taste  of  Robert  and  James 
Adam  is  fairly  shown  in  the  Adelphi — though  they  erected  a  large 
number  of  other  buildings.  But  the  greatest  architect  of  the  time 
was  sir  William  Chambers,  whose  fame — his  Chinese  fantasies 
being  forgotten — now  rests  secure,  on  his  one  grand  work,  Somerset 
House — by  far  the  noblest  English  building  of  its  time,  and,  with 
all  its  faults,  still  one  of  the  noblest  buildings  in  the  capital-  Un- 
fortunately, it  was  never  completed  on  its  original  plan  ;  and  the 
erection  of  King's  College  in  an  anomalous  style  — itself  about  to 
be  rendered  still  more  anomalous  by  the  perversion  of  the  semi~ 
Greek  chapel  into  semi-Gothic — will  for  ever  prevent  the  comple- 
tion of  its  eastern  side,  a  misfortune  rendered  the  more  obvious 
by  Mr.  Pennethorne's  recent  admirable  completion  of  the  western 
portion.  Somerset  House  was  the  last  crowning  triumph  of  the 
Italian  style,  introduced  by  Inigo  Jones  and  carried  on  with  very 
unequal  success  by  succeeding  architects.  The  investigations  of  two 
painters,  James  Stuart  and  Nicholas  Revett,  as  made  known  in  their 
"  Antiquities  of  Athens,"  (1762-94),  by  calling  the  attention  of  pn> 
fessional  men  and  the  public  to  the  architecture  of  ancient  Greece, 
effected  an  entire  change  in  the  received  notions  of  architectural 
beauty.  It  was  of  course  some  time  before  the  change  became 
apparent  in  our  public  edifices,  but,  from  the  publication  of  the 
"  Antiqiuties,"  there  was  a  constantly  growing  approximation  to 
Greek  forms  however  much  the  Greek  spirit  might  be  absent, 
until  in  our  own  day  it  culminated  in  the  works  of  sir  Robert 
Smirke,  and  was  followed  by  the  inevitable  reaction.  Stuart 
himself,  after  the  publication  of  the  first  volume  of  his  great 
«  Vol  v.  chap,  xviii.  t  Macaulay. 


382  HISTORY   OF    ENGLAND. 

work,  adopted  the  profession  of  an  architect,  and  found  considera- 
ble employment  :  his  best  known  building  is  the  Chapel  of 
Greenwich  Hospital — an  elegant  structure,  but  alone  sufficient 
to  show  that  he  was  by  no  means  a  purist  in  the  application  of 
Greek  principles.  Revett  also  practised  as  an  architest,  but  with- 
out any  marked  success.  It  remains  only  to  notice  James  Wyatt, 
who  suddenly  became  famous  by  the  erection  of  the  Pantheon, 
Oxford-street  (1772),  and  during  the  rest  of  the  century  secured  a 
large  share  of  public  favour.  His  ambition  in  the  first  instance 
was  to  produce  an  Italianised  Greek  style  ;  but  later  he  unhappily 
turned  his  attention  to  Gothic,  and  to  him  is  due  the  destruction  of 
much,  and  the  disfigurement  of  more,  of  the  most  precious  of  our 
mediaeval  remains.  His  tasteless  additions  are  now  for  the  most 
part  removed,  or  in  process  of  removal,  but  the  injury  to  the  origi- 
nals is  irreparable. 

We  ought  not,  however,  to  quit  this  part  of  our  subject  without 
mentioning  the  names  of  two  or  three  architects  to  whom  we  owe 
some  bridges  of  great  value  and  beauty,  though  unfortunately  in 
the  chief  instances  deficient  in  the  essential  quality  of  stability. 
Of  these  architects — for  bridge-building  was  not  then  consi- 
dered a  branch  of  engineering — the  earliest  was  Labelye,  a  Swiss, 
builder  of  Westminster  bridge,  opened  in  1750,  and  now  in  pro- 
cess of  replacement  by  a  less  picturesque  but  far  more  convenient 
and,  we  may  hope,  more  lasting  structure.  Blackfriars  bridge 
(opened  in  1760),  a  more  elegant  but  not  more  stable  edifice  than 
Labelye's,  was  the  work  of  Richard  Mylne.  A  competitor  with 
Mylne  for  the  erection  of  this  bridge  was  John  Gwyn,  whose 
proposals  for  a  Royal  Academy  we  have  mentioned.  Gwyn 
had  studied  the  subject  of  bridges  and  public  ways  closely, 
and  was  a  man  of  remarkably  clear  insight.  In  his  "  London 
and  Westminster  Improved,"  (1766,  to  which  Johnson  wrote  the 
"  Noble  Dedication,"  as  Boswell  terms  it),  Gwyn  not  only  urged 
the  necessity  of  replacing  old  London  bridge  by  a  new  one, 
carrying  another  bridge  across  the  Thames  near  the  site  where 
Waterloo  bridge  now  stands,  and  removing  Smithfield  and  Fleet 
markets,  but  in  maps,  as  well  as  in  the  text,  clearly  pointed  out  most 
of  the  new  lines  of  thoroughfare  and  principal  improvements  which 
have  been  since  effected  in  the  metropolis,  and  others  which  yet 
remain  unaccomplished.  Gwyn  was  the  builder  of  the  well-known 
Magdalen  bridge,  Oxford,  and  of  the  handsome  but  inconveniently 
steep  English  bridge  at  Shrewsbury. 


MANNERS. 


CHAPTER  XXI. 

Manners  as  depicted  in  the  Literature  of  the  period. — Changes  in  the  commerce  of 
Literature. — Samuel  Johnson  the  link  between  two  periods. — Literature  of  George 
the  Second's  time. — The  Novelists. — Richardson. — Fielding. — Smollett. — Sterne. — 
Goldsmith. — Literature  of  the  first  quarter  of  a  century  of  the  reign  of  George  the 
Third. —  Manners. —  Stage  Coaches. —  Highwaymen. —  The  Post. —  Inns. —  Public 
refreshment  places  of  London. — Ranelagh. — Vauxhall. — The  Pantheon. — The  Thea- 
tre.— Garrick. — Bath. — Gaming  Tables. 

ON  a  rainy  day,  somewhere  about  the  year  1780,  a  man  of  advan- 
ced age  stood  bareheaded  in  the  market  of  Uttoxeter,  making 
strange  contortions  of  visage  whilst  he  remained  for  an  hour  in 
front  of  a  particular  stall.  It  was  Dr.  Samuel  Johnson,  who  had 
gone  from  Lichfield  to  this  small  market  town,  to  subject  himself 
to  the  penance  of  rough  weather  and  mocking  by-standers,  for  ex- 
piation of  an  act  of  filial  disobedience  which  he  had  committed  fifty 
years  before.  His  father  was  a  bookseller  at  Lichfield,  who  died 
in  1731, —  a  man  who  knew  something  more  of  books  than  their 
titles  ;  a  proud  man  struggling  to  conceal  his  poverty.  He  had  a 
shop  with  a  good  stock  of  the  solid  folios  and  quartos  of  the  age  of 
Anne  and  George  I.  "  He  propagates  learning  all  over  this  dio- 
cese," said  a  chaplain  in  1716.  His  manner  of  trade  was  neverthe- 
less somewhat  different  from  that  of  the  bookseller  of  a  cathedral 
town  in  the  next  century.  He  carried  some  of  his  most  vendible 
stock  to  markets  around  Lichfield.  "  At  that  time  booksellers' 
shops  in  the  provincial  towns  of  England  were  very  rare,  so  that 
there  was  not  one  even  in  Birmingham,  in  which  town  old  Mr. 
Johnson  used  to  open  a  shop  every  market-day."*  The  old  man, 
being  on  a  sick-bed,  had  requested  his  son  Samuel  to  attend  the 
book-stall  at  Uttoxeter.  The  young  student  had  come  home  from 
Oxford  too  poor  to  complete  his  academical  career.  "  My  pride 
prevented  me  from  doing  my  duty,  and  I  gave  my  father  a  refusal," 
said  the  literary  veteran,  whose  pride,  during  the  fifty  years  that 
had  elapsed  between  the  committal  of  the  fault  and  its  singular 
atonement,  had  sustained  many  a  grievous  trial  and  sore  indignity. 
As  Johnson  was  enduring  his  hour  of  penance,  we  may  well  believe 
that  thoughts  of  the  great  changes  that  he  had  witnessed  in  the  com- 

*  Boswell's  "  Life  of  Johnson,"  chap.  i. 


384  HISTORY   OF   ENGLAND. 

merce  of  literature  would  come  into  his  mind.  He  had  seen  his 
father's  book-stall  at  Birmingham  succeeded  by  the  Circulating 
Library  which  William  Hutton  established  there  in  1751.  When 
he  was  a  lad  of  sixteen,  idling,  as  some  thought,  in  the  desultory 
reading  offered  to  him  in  his  father's  shop,  he  might  have  learnt 
from  a  pamphlet  of  that  time,  that  there  were  only  twenty-eight 
"  Printing-houses  in  all  the  Corporation  towns  of  England,"  seven 
towns  having  two  printers  each,  and  fourteen  towns  only  one  each.* 
Half  a  century  later  the  desire  for  News  had  called  forth  a  Print- 
ing House  in  every  considerable  town,  to  provide  its  own  "  Post- 
man," or  "  Mercury,"  or  "  Gazette,"  or  Courant,"  or  "  Chronicle," 
or  "  Times,"  or  "  Advertiser."  In  1782  there  were  in  England 
fifty  Provincial  Journals. f  In  the  year  that  Johnson's  father  died, 
1731,  Cave  issued  his  "  Gentleman's  Magazine."  The  "London 
Magazine  "  immediately  followed.  The  rapid  extension  of  a  class 
of  readers  somewhat  distinct  from  "  the  learned  "produced  "the 
Golden  Age  of  Magazines,  when  their  pages  were  filled  with  vol- 
untary contributions  from  men  who  never  aimed  at  dazzling  the 
public,  but  came  each  with  his  scrap  of  information  or  his  humble 
question,  or  his  hard  problem,  or  his  attempt  at  verse.''  J  Johnson 
was  to  nurse  the  infant  into  manhood,  with  food  more  substantial 
than  this  spoon-meat.  If  the  Printer  of  St.  John's  Gate  had  no 
other  claim  to  the  respect  of  coming  generations,  it  would  have 
been  praise  enough  that  he  was  the  first  who  gave  the  hard-earned 
bread  of  literature  to  Samuel  Johnson,  as  a  regular  coadjutor  in 
his  Magazine,  "  by  which,"  says  Boswell,  "he  probably  obtained  a 
tolerable  livelihood."  That  form  of  popular  literature  which  Cave 
originated  was  followed  up,  some  twenty  years  later,  by  the  more 
ambitious  "  Review."  The  "  Monthly  Review  "  was  the  parent  of 
"  The  Critical,"  "  The  London,"  and  other  Reviews,  that  addressed 
a  great  mixed  class  of  readers.  "  The  History  of  the  \Vorks  of 
the  Learned  "  might  have  higher  aims,  but  it  was  not  calculated 
for  a  large  and  enduring  success.  The  Monthly  Magazine  and 
Reviews  called  into  existence  a  new  race  of  authors.  The  division 
of  largi  books  into  weekly  or  monthly  numbers,  so  as  to  suit  a 
more  extended  market,  was  another  of  the  many  indications  of  the 
growth  of  a  different  race  of  book  buyers  than  the  purchasers  of 
costly  works, 

Johnson  came  to  London,  a  literary  adventurer,  in   1737.     He 
was  long  destined  to  bear  the  poverty,  and  to  encounter  the  sup- 

*  See  Nicholl's  "  Literary  Anecdotes,"  vol  i.  p.   288. 
t  Andrews's  "  History  of  Journalism,"  p.  274. 
J  Southey — "  The  Doctor,"  chap.  cxii. 


JOHNSON    THE   LINK   BETWEEN   TWO  PERIODS.  38* 

posed  degradation,  that  surrounded  the  author  who  wrote  for  sub- 
sistence—the successor  of  the  author  who  wrote  for  preferment. 
Coming  at  a  period  when  the  circle  of  readers  was  rapidly  and 
steadily  enlarging,  he  was  rescued  from  the  slavery  of  waiting  in  a 
lord's  antechamber  for  five  guineas  for  a  dedication,  to  pass  through 
the  scarcely  less  painful  dependence  upon  the  capricious  or  mer- 
cenary publisher  for  a  guinea  for  an  article.  But  from  this  second 
stage  of  the  author's  misery  relief  was  sure  to  come  in  time.  John- 
son swallowing  the  scraps  from  Cave's  table,  hidden  behind  a 
screen  to  conceal  his  ragged  clothes, — Johnson  wandering  about 
the  streets,  hungry  and  houseless,  with  Savage  ;  or  collecting  a  few 
shillings,  when  his  acquaintances  were  few  and  as  poor  as  him- 
self, to  redeem  the  clothes  of  Boyse  from  the  pawnbroker, — and 
Johnson  the  acknowledged  head  of  the  Literary  Club  of  which 
Burke  and  Reynolds  were  members,  —  are  indications  of  social 
changes  that  were  of  more  importance  than  the  vicissitudes  in  the 
life  of  the  individual.  In  many  respects  Johnson  may  be  regarded 
as  the  Representative  Man  of  the  Literature  of  half  a  century — the 
Magazine-writer,  trie  Essayist,  the  Critic,  the  Poet,  the  Philologist 
— the  chapman,  with  many  articles  of  use  or  ornament  in  a  crowded 
market.  But,  in  a  point  of  view  not  altogether  fanciful,  Johnson 
was  something  higher  than  a  Representative — he  was  a  King.  Of 
his  death,  in  1784,  it  has  been  said,  "it  was  not  only  the  end  of  a 
reign,  but  the  end  of  kingship  altogether,  in  our  literary  system. 
For  king  Samuel  has  had  no  successor  ;  nobody  since  his  day,  and 
that  of  his  contemporary  Voltaire,  has  sat  on  a  throne  of  Literature, 
either  in  England  or  in  France."*  More  fortunate  than  most 
sovereigns,  king  Samuel  from  the  time  when  he  began  really  to 
reign  instead  of  fighting  his  way  to  the  royal  chair,  had  an  annalist 
who  has  not  damaged  the  character  of  the  potentate  by  a  minute 
record  of  the  frailties  and  prejudices  of  the  man.  Johnson  has  in- 
deed an  interest  apart  from  that  of  being  the  hero  of  the  most  amus- 
ing book  in  any  language,  from  his  position  as  the  chief  connecting 
link  between  the  Literature  of  two  periods  which  appear,  at  the 
first  glance  to  be  very  widely  separated.  In  1738,  Johnson  pub- 
lished anonymously  his  poem  of  "  London  " ;  and  Pope  is  reported 
to  have  said,  "  the  author,  whoever  he  is,  will  not  be  long  concealed." 
In  1783,  Johnson  "read  with  great  delight"  Crabbe's  poem  of 
"The  Village,"  and  suggested  alterations  in  some  of  the  lines. 
The  association  with  Pope  carries  us  back  to  the  time  of  Anne. 
The  association  with  Crabbe  leads  us  onward  to  the  time  of  Wil- 
liam IV.  But  Johnson,  isolated  from  the  literature  that  preceded 

*  G.  L.  Craik— "  Literature  and  Learning  in  England." 

VOL.  VI.— 25  «• 


386  HISTORY  OF   ENGLAND. 

him  and  the  literature  that  followed  him,  is  the  faithful  mirror  of 
the  literature  of  his  own  age.  In  social  intercourse  with  him,  we 
see  a  large  number  of  the  most  distinguished  of  his  brethren.  In 
his  estimates  of  their  value,  and  of  others  his  contemporaries — 
estimates  often  prejudiced  to  the  extent  of  absurdity,  but  even  in 
their  prejudices  reflecting  the  opinions  of  his  day — we  obtain  a 
broader  general  view  of  the  literature  of  a  very  remarkable  period 
of  transition  than  from  any  other  source.  Johnson,  as  preserved 
to  us  by  Boswell,  is  the  universal  commentator.  In  his  admiration 
or  in  his  contempt,  we  collect  who  were  the  writers  rilling  the  largest 
space  in  the  estimation  of  the  public  they  addressed.  We  may 
trace  them,like  himself  obtaining  almost  an  absolute  command  over 
the  national  thought,  by  lighting  up  the  obscure  places  of  know- 
ledge, and  by  bringing  the  remote  places  into  easy  communication. 

The  precise  period  at  which  Johnson  launched  his  little  bark 
upon  the  wide  ocean  of  literature,  would  appear,  in  many  respects, 
as  one  offering  small  encouragement  to  a  man  possessing  high 
genius,  even  if  combined  with  the  rarer  faculty  of  turning  his  learn- 
ing and  abilities  to  account.  The  government 'of  sir  Robert  Wai- 
pole  would  bestow  wages  upon  needy  hacks,  without  much  regard 
to  the  quality  of  the  work  that  was  to  be  done  for  the  hire.  To 
shower  lucrative  places  upon  Walpole's  scribbling  eulogists  and 
defenders,  would  have  been  to  take  the  bread  out  of  the  mouths  of 
the  other  hungry  tribe  who  required  sinecures  as  the  payment  for 
their  votes.  When  Johnson  came  to  London  he  found  the  authors  up 
in  arms  against  that  partial  interference  with  "  the  precarious  de- 
pendence "  of  the  wits  which  Walpole  had  accomplished  by  placing 
the  stage  under  the  control  of  a  licenser.*  Yet  if,  by  the  effect 
of  this  law,  the  Lord  Chamberlain  was  to  be  the  chief  supervisor, 
who  would  not  suffer  one  species  of  wit  to  be  retailed  without  a 
permit,  the  restrictions  upon  the  theatre  had  no  influence  upon  the 
speedy  and  luxuriant  growth  of  many  other  forms  of  intellectual 
production,  adapted,  like  that  of  the  stage,  for  a  general  diffusion 
amongst  all  classes  of  society. 

It  is  not  uncommon  to  hear  the  reign  of  George  II.  spoken  of 
as  an  age  of  dullness.  Except  by  looking  accurately  at  bibliograph- 
ical dates,  we  can  scarcely  form  a  notion  of  the  literary  vigour  that 
was  displayed  in  the  last  twenty  years  of  that  reign.  The  greatest 
of  the  productions  of  Pope  was  the  fourth  book  of  "  The  Dunciad," 
published  in  1742.  He  died  in  1744.  The  mighty  intellect  of 
Swift  had  been  long  shut  up  in  hopeless  imbecility,  when  he  died 
\n  1745.  Young,  who  had  made  his  reputation  and  his  fortune  by 

*  A  nte,  vol.  v.  p.  467. 


THE   NOVELISTS. — RICHARDSON.  387 

his  Satires  in  the  latter  years  of  George  I.,  achieved  what  the 
world  was  inclined  to  consider  a  far  higher  distinction  by  the  pub- 
lication of  his  "  Night  Thoughts"  in  1741.  Thomson,  who,  in  1726, 
had  established  his  enduring  claim  to  the  honours  of  a  true  poet, 
published  his  "  Castle  of  Indolence  "  in  1748,  the  year  of  his  death. 
Another  generation  of  poets  was  at  hand,  to  fill  up  the  choir  when 
the  elder  race  were  silent.  Johnson  made  a  poetical  name  by  his 
"  London  "  in  1738,  and  by  his  "Vanity  of  Human  Wishes  "  in  1749. 
Akenside's  "  Pleasures  of  Imagination,"  and  Armstrong's  "  Art  of 
Preserving  Health,"  appeared  in  1774.  The  "  Oriental  Eclogues  " 
of  Collins  in  1742,  and  his  "  Odes  "  in  1746,  marked  the  day-spring 
of  a  genius  that  was  too  soon  clouded  in  a  dark  night.  Gray's 
"  Elegy ""  first  made  him  known  to  the  public,"  according  to 
Johnson,  in  1751;  and  soon  commanded  that  popularity  which  it 
never  lost.  His  "  Bard  "  and  "  Progress  of  Poesy  "  found  few  ad- 
mirers upon  their  appearance  in  1757,  amply  compensated  by  sub- 
sequent over-praise.  The  English  poetical  succession  was  thus 
honourably  continued  through  the  reigns  of  the  foreigners  who  had 
succeeded  to  the  throne  of  the  Stuarts ;  and  was  handed  on  to 
that  of  their  successor,  "  born  and  bred  a  Briton." 

A  new  species  of  literature,  that  may  almost  be  considered 
indigenous,  is  the  marked  characteristic  of  the  period  we  are  now 
regarding.  In  1740  Samuel  Richardson  published  the  first  part  of 
his  novel  of  "Pamela;"  of  which  the  second  part,  issued  in  1741, 
was  regarded  as  the  natural  falling-off  of  most  "continuations." 
To  understand  the  extraordinary  popularity  of  "  Pamela,"  we  must 
take  Richardson's  own  account  of  the  object  which  he  proposed  to 
himself  in  its  composition  :  "  I  thought  the  story,  if  written  in  an 
easy  and  natural  manner  suitable  to  the  simplicity  of  it,  might  pos- 
sibly turn  young  people  into  a  course  of  reading  different  from  the 
pomp  and  parade  of  romance-writing  ;  and,  dismissing  the  improb- 
able and  marvellous,  with  which  novels  generally  abound,  might 
tend  to  promote  the  cause  of  religion  and  virtue."  The  novels 
to  which  Richardson  alludes  were  not  of  English  growth  ;  for,  with 
the  exception  of  Defoe,  we  had  no  novelist  who  attempted  to  invest 
the  ordinary  concerns  of  the  life  of  unheroic  men  and  .women  with 
the  charm  of  reality.  We  had  translations  from  French  romances, 
and  imitations  of  French  romances,  from  the  time  of  Scudery  to 
the  time  of  Crebillon.  It  was  reserved  for  Richardson  to  carry  on 
a  story  with  such  an  implicit  reliance  upon  his  power  of  exciting 
sympathy  without  "  the  improbable  and  marvellous,"  that  the  edu- 
cated and  uneducated  have  confided  in  his  fictions  as  absolute 
truths.  That  confidence  has  subsisted  even  to  recent  times,  when 


388  HISTORY   OF   ENGLAND. 

these  creations,  too  tedious  for  a  more  busy  age,  were  not  quite 
forgotten.  Sir  John  Herschel  has  preserved  a  tribute  to  the  genius 
of  Richardson  which  is  worth  a  wilderness  of  criticism  :  "  I  recol. 
lect  an  anecdote  told  me  by  a  late  highly-respected  inhabitant  of 
Windsor,  as  a  fact  which  he  could  personally  testify,  having  occur- 
red in  a  village  where  he  resided  several  years,  and  where  he  actu- 
ally was  at  the  time  it  took  place.  The  blacksmith  of  the  village 
had  got  hold  of  Richardson's  novel  of  '  Pamela,  or  Virtue  Reward- 
ed,' and  used  to  read  it  aloud  in  the  long  summer  evenings,  seated 
on  his  anvil,  and  never  failed  to  have  a  large  and  attentive  audience. 
It  is  a  pretty  long-winded  book,  but  their  patience  was  fully  a 
match  for  the  author's  prolixity,  and  they  fairly  listened  to  it  all. 
At  length,  when  the  happy  turn  of  fortune  arrived  which  brings 
the  hero  and  heroine  together,  and  sets  them  living  long  and  hap- 
pily according  to  the  most  approved  rules,  the  congregation  were 
so  delighted  as  to  raise  a  great  shout,  and,  procuring  the  church 
keys,  actually  set  the  parish  bells  ringing."  *  "  Clarissa  "  was  not 
published  till  1748;  "Sir  Charles  Grandison  "  followed  in  1751. 
There  is  a  singular  passage  in  a  letter  of  Johnson  to  Richardson, 
which  is  suggestive,  as  it  appears  to  us,  of  one  of  the  peculiar  mer- 
its of  the  novelist.  He  writes,  speaking  of  "Clarissa,"  "I  wish 
you  would  add  an  Index  rerum,  that  when  the  reader  recollects  any 
incident  he  may  easily  find  it."  Johnson  makes  a  similar  sugges- 
tion when  "  Grandison  "  was  published.  "  '  Clarissa,'  "  he  says, 
"  is  not  a  performance  to  be  read  with  eagerness,  and  laid  aside 
for  ever ;  but  will  be  occasionally  consulted  by  the  busy,  the  aged, 
and  the  studious."  It  is  one  of  the  mo~,t  characteristic  excellences 
of  Richardson,  that  there  is  not  the  minutest  incident  in  his  narra- 
tives which  has  not  some  distinct  bearing  upon  the  development 
of  the  complete  story.  To  trace  the  connexion  of  these  circum- 
stances, would  have  been  facilitated  by  an  index ;  and  it  is  not  im- 
possible that  this  was  in  Johnson's  mind,  although  Mr.  Croker 
regards  the  suggestion  as  an  adroit  piece  of  flattery  to  a  vain  man.f 
We  remember  to  have  heard  an  eminent  lawyer  declare  that  he 
studied  Richardson's  plots  as  he  would  study  a  mass  of  evidence 
in  a  complicated  case ;  and  that  the  extreme  art  by  which  the 
chain  was  kept  entire,  in  links  not  always  apparent,  could  be  read- 
ily traced  by  one  who  brought  the  legal  mind  to  discover  some- 
thing beyond  meaningless  prolixity  in  the  endless  details  of  these 
novels. 

In  1742  Henry  Fielding  published  "  The  Adventures  of  Joseph 

*  "  Address  to  the  Subscribers  to  the  Windsor  and  Eton  Public  Library  ; "  1833. 
t  Boswell,  ed.  1848,  p.  ?j. 


FIELDING.  389 

Andrews,"  the  hero  of  which  history  "  was  esteemed  to  be  the 
only  son  of  Gaffer  and  Gammer  Andrews,  and  brother  to  the  il- 
lustrious Pamela,  whose  virtue  is  at  present  so  famous."  No  one 
now  reads  Fielding's  first  novel  as  a  burlesque  of  Richardson,  for 
which  it  was  really  intended.  It  would  appear  from  a  letter  of 
Gray  to  West,  that  he  had  been  amused  by  "  Joseph  Andrews," 
without  a  suspicion  that  any  ridicule  was  intended  of  another 
novelist;  and,  indeed,  Fielding,  having  discovered  his  own  real 
power,  appears  very  soon  to  have  resigned  himself  to  delineations 
of  character  and  manners  without  much  regard  to  his  purpose  of 
satirizing  the  over-wrought  sentiment  of  Richardson.  Gray  says : 
"  The  incidents  are  ill-laid  and  without  invention  ;  but  the  charac- 
ters have  a  great  deal  of  nature,  which  always  pleases,  even  in 

her    lowest   shapes Throughout   he    shows    himself  well 

read  in  stage-coaches,  country  squires,  inns,  and  inns  of  court." 
Johnson,  who  always  professed  contempt  for  Fielding  in  proportion 
as  he  admired  Richardson,  maintained  that  Fielding's  characters 
were  characters  of  manners,  whilst  Richardson's  were  characters  of 
nature.*  "  Richardson  used  to  say,  that  had  he  not  known  who 
Fielding  was,  he  should  have  believed  he  was  an  ostler.  Sir,  there 
is  more  knowledge  of  the  heart  in  one  letter  of  Richardson's  than 
in  all  '  Tom  Jones.'  I,  indeed,  never  read  'Joseph  Andrews.'" 
This  dispraise  of  Fielding  indicates  his  great  value  to  those  who 
would  understand  the  manners  of  his  age  ;  in  what  Boswell  prop- 
erly termed  "  very  natural  pictures  of  human  life,"  but  which 
Johnson  despised  as  "  of  very  low  life,"  Fielding,  "  well  read  in 
stage-coaches,  country  squires,  inns,  and  inns  of  court,"  is  a  faith- 
ful historian,  in  his  own  line,  of  a  condition  of  society  that  was 
worth  the  closest  observation  of  one  capable  of  exhibiting  its  char- 
acteristics. His  "Jonathan  Wild,"  published  in  1743,  can  scarce- 
ly be  regarded  as  a  novel.  Before  the  appearance  of  his  greatest 
work,  "Tom  Jones,"  in  1749,  another  novelist,  came  upon  the 
field,  with  equal  readiness  of  observation,  but  with  a  coarser  power 
of  delineating  what  he  saw.  Smollett's  "  Roderick  Random  "  ap- 
peared in  1748.  In  1751  were  published  both  Fielding's  "  Amelia  " 
and  Smollett's  " Peregrine  Pickle."  In  1753,  Smollett's  "Ferdi- 
nand Count  Fathom  "  appeared.  Fielding  died  in  1754.  Another 
of  equal  genius  with  these  two  great  novelists — at  his  outset  equally 
popular — came  in  the  last  year  of  George  II.  The  first  two  vol- 
umes of  Sterne's  "  Tristram  Shandy  "  were  published  in  1759,  the 
other  seven  volumes  at  intervals  extending  to  1767.  In  1776 
Johnson  said,  with  some  truth,  of  this  remarkable  book,  "  Nothing 
*  Boswell,  ed.  1848,  p.  190. 


3QO  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

odd  will  do  long.  '  Tristram  Shandy  '  did  not  last."  One  whose 
hold  upon  readers  of  every  class  has  never  been  loosened,  from 
the  hour  when  he  appeared  as  a  novelist  in  1766,  Oliver  Goldsmith, 
produced,  in  his  "  Vicar  of  Wakefield,"  a  picture  of  English  life 
which  puts  us  in  far  better  humour  with  his  time  than  the  freer 
delineations  of  either  of  the  great  masters  of  fiction  who  had  pre- 
ceded him.  The  people  had  either  become  more  lovable  or  they 
are  presented  to  us  by  a  more  kindly  observer. 

In  the  decade  immediately  preceding  the  accession  of  George 
III.,  there  was  something  like  a  revival  of  that  species  of  literature 
which  Addison  and  Steele  had  naturalized  amongst  us.  In  1750 
appeared  the  "  Rambler,"  by  Johnson,  published  twice  a  week. 
In  1758,  "the  great  moralist,"  as  he  was  called,  commenced  his 
"Idler.''  The  "Adventurer,"  in  which  Johnson  was  also  con- 
cerned, was  issued  in  1752.  The  "  World,"  issued  in  1753,  and 
the  "  Connoisseur,"  in  1754,  had  more  of  the  spirit  of  the  earlier 
Essayists  than  the  measured  periods  in  which  Johnson  descanted 
upon  human  follies.  Edward  Moore  and  Owen  Cambridge,  in 
the  "World,"  George  Colman  and  Bonnell  Thornton,  in  the 
"  Connoisseur,"  looked  upon  life  in  the  spirit  of  the  sage  invoked 
by  Johnson  : — 

"  Once  more,  Democritus,  arise  on  earth, 
With  cheerful  wisdom  and  instructive  mirth." 

The  period  had  also  its  exponent  in  one  whom  the  admirers 
of  satire,  made  doubly  attractive  by  personality,  called  "  Aris- 
tophanes." Samuel  Foote  was  not  a  vulgar  libeller.  In  his  carica- 
tures of  vice  and  folly,  during  thirty  years  from  1747  to  1776,  we 
may  see  not  the  mere  humours  of  individuals,  but  the  marked 
characteristics  of  prevailing  manners. 

The  literature  of  the  first  quarter  of  a  century  of  the  reign  of 
George  III.  presents  us  much  indifferent  Poetry,  but  some  that 
has  survived.  The  vigour  of  Churchill  may  yet  be  admired,  in 
spite  of  his  coarseness,  If,  with  the  exception  of  Goldsmith  and 
Beattie,  there  was  little  verse  that  was  unaffected  and  natural  until 
the  time  of  Cowper,  a  taste  for  simplicity  and  freshness,  in  prefer- 
ence to  the  artificial  and  elaborate,  was  produced  by  the  publica- 
tion of  Percy's  "  Reliques  of  Ancient  Poetry."  Johnson  did  far 
less  for  a  right  direction  of  the  national  taste  in  his  "  Lives  of  the 
Poets,"  than  Thomas  Warton  in  his  "  History  of  English  Poetry." 
Garrick  made  Shakspere  in  fashion,  and  occasionally  ventured,  in 
his  desire  to  give  him  a  more  fashionable  dress,  to  patch  the  poet's 
golden  mantle  with  the  tinsel  of  the.player's  wardrobe.  For  graver 


MANNERS.  391 

literature,  this  portion  of  the  reign  of  George  III.  acquired  a  last- 
ing distinction.  It  gave  us  Burke  as  the  greatest  of  political 
philosophers ;  Adam  Smith  as  an  economist ;  and  Hume,  Robert- 
son, and  Gibbon  as  historians.  More  important  as  a  painter  of 
manners  even  than  the  Novelists,  the  Dramatists,  or  the  Essayists, 
that  age  bequeathed  us  Horace  Walpole.  The  public  of  his  own 
time  knew  little  of  his  surpassing  power  of  presenting  the  pecu- 
liarities of  his  own  exclusive  class  ;  and,  in  common  with  other 
letter-writers  of  the  same  period,  of  introducing  us  to  the  saloons, 
where,  hidden  from  profane  eyes,  the  noble  and  the  great  were 
playing  "  Low  Life  above  Stairs."* 

Let  us  endeavour  to  note  a  few  of  the  more  prominent  features 
of  the  national  character  and  habits,  as  delineated  in  the  light 
literature  of  half  a  century.  It  was  the  transition  period  from  an 
age  in  which  the  decencies  of  life  were  very  imperfectly  observed, 
to  an  age  in  which  decorum  was  beginning  to  assert  an  authority 
which  has  steadily  gone  on,  to  preserve  a  greater  semblance  of 
morality,  and  therefore,  in  no  inconsiderable  degree,  to  hold  fast 
its  substance.  The  grossness  of  society  was  reflected  in  the 
novelists  and  dramatists  of  the  middle  of  the  century ;  but,  as  we 
advance  towards  its  end  we  find  the  grossness  veiled  in  double 
meanings,  and  the  profaneness  smothered  in  stars  and  dashes. 
Amidst  much  deep-seated  depravity  in  all  classes,  there  was  a 
larger  amount  of  indecorum.  When  the  indecorum  vanished, 
much  of  the  vice,  no  doubt,  remained  behind ;  but  in  its  hiding- 
places  it  unquestionably  became  less  dangerous.  We  shall  glance, 
in  the  first  instance,  at  the  public  resorts  of  society; — the  places 
where  all  ranks  meet,  and  to  a  certain  extent  associate. f 

Stage  Coaches;  Inns;  Public  Conveyance;  Public  Accom- 
modation. This  is  a  large  subject ;  a  subject  that,  at  the  first 
view,  might  appear  to  touch  only  the  surface  of  society.  But  it 
really  involves  many  features  of  a  nation's  social  life.  In  the  days 
of  our  early  novelists  the  stage  coach  was  an  institution,  and  on 
some  roads  had  arrived  at  the  dignity  of  being  called  a  "Ma- 
chine." But  this  rapid  vehicle  of  four  miles  an  hour  was  not  for 
common  travellers — indeed,  very  genteel  travellers  were  content 
with  cheaper  accommodation.  There  was  a  mode  of  transit  upon 
the  North  Road,  which  only  cost  a  shilling  a-day  to  a  passenger, 
and  in  conveying  him  from  York  to  London  did  not  occupy  quite  a 
fortnight.  This  was  the  conveyance  of  Roderick  Random  to  the 

*  "George  Selwyn  and  his  Contemporaries,"  vol.  i.  p.  20. 

t  Tliis  sketch  carries  on  the  delineation  of  manners  at  the  beginning  of  the  century 
~-antet  vol.  v.  chapters  xv.,  xvi.,  and  xvii. 


392  HISTORY   OF   ENGLAND. 

metropolis,  and  we  may  believe  that  the  waggon  and  its  inside 
have  been  faithfully  portrayed  out  of  Smollett's  personal  recollec- 
tions. Random,  and  his  faithful  follower,  Strap,  overtake  the 
waggon  upon  the  road :  ascend  by  a  ladder ;  and  tumbling  into 
the  straw  find  themselves  in  the  society  of  Captain  Weazel  with 
his  spouse,  and  an  old  usurer  with  a  vivacious  female  companion. 
The  captain — an  ensign  made  out  of  a  nobleman's  valet — when 
the  waggon  arrived  at  its  inn,  demanded  a  separate  room  for  his 
lady  and  himself,  with  a  supper  apart.  The  inn-keeper  replied 
that,  "  he  could  not  afford  them  a  room  by  themselves ;  and  as 
for  supping,  he  had  prepared  victuals  for  the  passengers  in  the 
waggon  without  respect  of  persons."  In  the  stage-coach  we  find 
the  same  assumption  of  superiority.  "  The  human  species  are 
divided  into  two  sorts  of  people,  to  wit,  high  people  and  low  peo- 
ple. .  .  .  These  two  parties,  especially  those  bordering  nearly 
on  each  other,  to  wit,  the  lowest  of  the  high,  and  the  highest  of 
the  low,  often  change  their  parties  according  to  place  and  time." 
The  bickerings  of  a  stage-coach  company  illustrate  this  philosophic 
view  of  Fielding.  Miss  Graveairs,  the  daughter  of  a  gentleman's 
steward  who  had  been  a  postillion,  would  not  demean  herself  to 
ride  with  Joseph  Andrews,  a  footman.  The  youth  had  met  with 
an  accident : — "  there  were  waggons  on  the  road,"  said  the  gen- 
teel personage.  A  young  lady,  who  was  an  earl's  grand-daughter, 
begged,  almost  with  tears  in  her  eyes,  that  the  poor  fellow  might 
be  admitted.  To  the  remark  that  "  no  one  could  refuse  another 
coming  into  a  stage-coach,"  the  fine  lady  replied,  "  I  don't  know, 
madam,  I  am  not  much  tised  to  stage-coaches;  I  seldom  travel  in 
them."  There  is  another  witness  to  the  assumption  of  gentility  in 
female  stage-coach  passengers  : — "  I  have  always  remarked  that 
within  half-a-dozen  miles  of  the  end  of  our  journey,  if  there  has 
been  a  fine  spoken  lady  in  the  coach,  though  but  a  country  shop- 
keeper's wife,  who  imagined  herself  a  stranger  to  the  company, 
she  has  expressed  great  anger  and  astonishment  at  not  seeing  the 
chaise,  the  chariot,  or  the  coach,  coming  to  meet  her  on  the 
road."* 

The  pretension  of  the  ladies  to  the  respect  due  to  "  quality," 
is  matched  in  the  novelists  by  the  boasts  of  the  gentlemen  to  the 
confidence  produced  by  courage.  To  be  cool  and  collected  in  the 
presence  of  danger  was  as  necessary  in  a  journey  from  London  to 
Bath  as  in  the  march  from  Carlisle  to  Culloden.  The  highwayman 
was  an  institution  especially  connected  with  the  stage-coach.  He 
had  been  growing  into  a  power  for  many  years.  He  was  in  his  most 

*  Edward  Moore  ;  "  World,"  November  29,  1753. 


STAGE   COACHES. — HIGHWAYMEN.  393 

high  and  palmy  state  when  Fielding  had  ceased  to  write,  and  George 
III.  began  to  reign.  In  1761,  "the  Flying  Highwayman  engrosses 
the  conversation  of  most  of  the  towns  within  twenty  miles  of  Lon- 
don .  .  .  He  robs  upon  three  different  horses,  a  gray,  a  sorrel, 
and  a  black  one.  .  .  He  has  leaped  over  Colnbrook  turnpike  a 
dozen  times  within  this  fortnight."  *  A  lawyer,  in  Fielding's  stage- 
coach, boasts  that  he  had  often  met  highwaymen  when  he  travelled 
on  horseback,  but  none  ever  durst  attack  him.  A  ruffian  stops  the 
coach,  and  the  lawyer  and  the  rest  of  the  passengers  quietly  sur- 
render their  money ;  but  the  lawyer  informs  the  company  that  if  it 
had  been  daylight,  and  he  could  have  come  at  his  pistols,  he  would 
never  have  submitted  to  the  robbery.  A  stage-coach  is  crossing 
Hounslow  Heath  at  day-break.  The  Heath  at  that  period,  and 
long  after,  invariably  suggested  the  idea  of  highwaymen.  The 
courage  of  a  "  son  of  Mars  "  was  to  assure  the  ladies  of  adequate 
protection  . — "  Make  yourselves  perfectly  easy  on  that  head,  madam. 
I  have  got  a  pair  of  pistols — here  they  are — which  I  took  from  a 
horse-officer  at  the  battle  of  Dettingen ;  they  are  double  loaded, 
and  if  any  highwayman  in  England  robs  you  of  the  value  of  a  pin, 

while  I  have  the  honour  of  being  in  your  company "     The  oaths 

may  be  imagined.  Two  highwaymen  appear  in  sight;  the  ladies 
begin  to  scream ;  a  lawyer  (the  novelists  delight  to  introduce  a 
lawyer)  exclaims,  "  no  matter — we'll  sue  the  county  and  recover," 
his  teeth  chattering ;  the  warrior  quietly  gives  up  his  pistols  to 
Smollett's  hero,  who  jumps  out  of  the  coach  to  face  the  robbers. 

Such  were  the  scenes  when  few  persons  travelled ;  when  the 
facilities  of  locomotion  did  not  make  travellers,  as  in  the  later  days 
of  the  mail,  and  in  our  own  wondrous  days  of  the  railway.  A 
little  boy  going  to  school,  and  his  mother,  are  the  only  passengers 
in  the  stage-coach  from  Worcester  to  Gloucester.  The  vehicle 
rolls  about;  and  a  horseman  is  seen  speaking  earnestly  to  the 
coachman,  who  is  at  last  peremptorily  ordered  by  him  to  stop.  The 
horseman  is  not  a  robber.  He  is  an  honest  farmer,  who  opens  the 
coach  door :  tells  the  lady  that  the  driver  is  so  drunk  that  there 
will  be  an  accident ;  conducts  her  and  her  son  to  his  farm  hard  by ; 
and  finally  puts  a  pillion  upon  his  horse,  and  carries  them  safely  to 
Gloucester.  The  relator  of  the  incident  contrasts  the  one  coach— 
probably  not  a  daily  stage — between  Worcester  and  Gloucester, 
and  its  scanty  supply  of  passengers,  with  the  long  and  well-filled 
trains  that  vibrate  m-vny  times  a-day  between  these  two  cities,  t  The 
coach  which  Fielding's  Parson  Adams  could  outstrip  in  pace  as 

*  "  Annual  Register,"  vol.  iv.  p.  189. 

*  "  Remains  of  T.  W.  Hill,"  p.  109. 


394  HISTORY   OF    ENGLAND. 

he  walked  before  it,  brandishing  his  crab  stick,  was,  in  twenty  or 
thirty  years,  to  pass  into  a  vehicle  whose  rapidity  was  somewhat 
dangerous  upon  roads  very  unscientifically  made.  Chatterton  tells 
his  sister  that  on  his  ride  outside  the  stage  from  Bristol  to  London, 
the  coachman  complimented  him  upon  his  courage  in  sticking  upon 
the  roof  without  holding  to  the  iron.  A  Prussian  clergyman 
Charles  Moritz,  travelling  in  England  in  1782,  for  the  most  part  on 
foot,  being  anxious  to  return  to  London,  mounts  the  outside  of  a 
"post  coach  "  at  Leicester.  To  him  it  was  a  new  situation.  "  I  sat 
nearest  the  wheel,  and  the  moment  that  we  set  off,  I  fancied  that  I 
saw  certain  death  await  me."  The  machine  seemed  to  fly  ;  it  was 
a  miracle  that  they  still  stuck  to  the  coach.  "  At  last,  the  being 
continually  in  fear  of  my  life  became  insupportable,  and  as  we  were 
going  up  a  hill,  and  consequently  proceeding  rather  slow  than  usual, 
I  crept  from  the  top  of  the  coach,  and  got  snug  into  the  basket."  * 
The  increased  speed  of  the  stage  operated  no  reform  in  the 
conveyance  of  letters  by  the  post.  The  letter-bags  were  carried 
by  boys  on  horseback.  If  a  bag  reached  its  destination  in  safety, 
without  being  rifled,  it  was  more  by  a  happy  chance -than  by 
any  care  of  the  post-office  authorities  for  the  prevention  of  rob- 
bery. As  to  accelerating  the  conveyance  of  letters  that  was  an 
impossibility.  The  post  that  left  London  on  Monday  night  reached 
Worcester,  Birmingham,  Norwich,  Bath,  on  the  Wednesday  after- 
noon. A  letter  from  London  to  Glasgow  was  only  five  days  on 
the  road.  What  more  could  be  done  ?  The  manager  of  the  Bath 
theatre  proposed  a  plan  for  bringing  the  letter-bags  from  Bath  to 
London,  in  sixteen  or  eighteen  hours.  Great  was  the  merriment 
at  so  wild  a  scheme  amongst  the  wise  officials.  Mr.  Palmer  per- 
severed ;  and  he  had  the  support  of  a  more  vigorous  power  than 
that  of  the  salaried  haters  of  innovation.  Mr.  Pitt  took  the  project 
under  his  care;  and  in  1784  the  first  mail-coach  left  London. 
There  was  an  end  of  robberies  of  the  mail — of  the  system  under 
which  "  the  mail  is  generally  entrusted  to  some  idle  boy  without 
character,  mounted  on  a  worn-out  hack,  and  who,  so  far  from  being 
able  to  defend  himself,  or  escape  from  a  robber,  is  much  more 
likely  to  be  in  league  with  him."  f  The  letters  went  safely,  and 
they. went  at  twice  or  thrice  their  former  speed. 

Inns.  Half  a  century  ag,o  the  inns  of  a  small  English  "  Bor- 
ough "  were  described  by  Crabbe.  More  than  half  a  century  before 
Crabbe,  Fielding  and  Smollett  had  shown  us  the  inns  of  their  time. 
Much  of  the  poet's  description  is  now  of  things  passed  away.  The 

*  "  Travels  through  various  parts  of  England." 
t  Palmer's  plan — presented  to  Mr.  Pitt. 


INNS. 


395 


hostelries  described  by  the  novelists  are  as  obsolete  as  the  old 
signs  over  the  London  shops.  We  now  rarely  find  the  "  Head  Inn"  of 
the  time  when  the  world  travelled  in  carriages  with  post-horses  ; 
when  the  ready  chaise  and  smart  driver  were  to  be  had  in  five 
minutes  ;  when  the  ample  yard  contained  "  buildings  where  order 
and  distinction  reign  ; "  when  the  lordly  host  bent  in  his  pride  to 
the  parting  guest ;  when  the  lady  hostess  governed  the  bar  and 
schooled  the  kitchen.  *  According  to  Fielding,  "  it  was  the  dusk 
of  the  evening  when  a  grave  person  rode  into  an  inn,  and,  commit-, 
ting  his  horse  to  the  ostler,  went  directly  into  the  kitchen,  and,  call- 
ing for  a  pipe  of  tobacco,  took  his  place  by  the  fireside,  where 
several  other  persons  were  likewise  assembled."  The  grave  per- 
son was  Parson  Adams,  a  clergyman  of  much  learning,  but  hum- 
ble means  ;  who  had  been  accustomed  to  take  his  cup  of  ale  in  the 
kitchen  of  the  squire  who  had  given  him  his  curacy  of  twenty-five 
pounds  a-year,  and  whose  lady  did  not  think  his  dress  good  enough 
for  the  gentry  at  her  table.  It  is  true  that  in  a  nobler  apartment 
of  this  inn  there  was  another  clergyman,  named  Barnabas,  who  had 
condescended  to  administer  ghostly  consolation  to  a  poor  man  sup- 
posed to  be  dying  ;  but  "  proceeded  to  prayer  with  all  the  expedi- 
tion he  was  master  of,  some  company  then  waiting  for  him  below 
in  the  parlour,  where  the  ingredients  for  punch  were  all  in  readi- 
ness, but  no  one  would  squeeze  the  oranges  till  he  came."  Select 
as  the  company  in  the  parlour  might  be,  there  was  no  distinction 
in  the  kitchen.  The  next  day,  in  that  general  temple  of  good 
cheer,  the  reverend  punch-maker,  the  surgeon,  and  the  exciseman, 
"  were  smoking  their  pipes  over  some  cider-ale  ;"  and  Parson  Bar- 
nabas having  learnt  the  profession  of  Parson  Adams  (for  his  cas- 
sock had  been  tied  up  when  he  arrived)  invited  him  to  adjourn, 
with  the  doctor  and  the  exciseman,  to  another  room,  and  partake 
of  a  bowl  of  punch.  This  libation  finished,  Barnabas  takes  his 
seat  upon  a  bench  in  the  inn  yard,  to  smoke  his  pipe.  This  inn — 
the  great  coach  inn — was  a  very  different  affair  from  the  little  public- 
house  on  the  side  of  the  highway  described  by  Smollett :  "  The 
kitchen  was  the  only  room  for  entertainment  in  the  house,  paved 
with  red  bricks  remarkably  clean,  furnished  with  three  or  four 
Windsor  chairs,  adorned  with  shining  plates  of  pewter  and  copper 
saucepans,  nicely  scoured,  that  even  dazzled  the  eyes  of  the  be- 
holder." f  In  this  description  there  is  nothing  obsolete  ;  nor  have 
the  "  parlour  splendours  "  of  Goldsmith's  Auburn  inn  passed  away 
— "the  royal  game  of  goose  " — the  "broken  tea  cups  wisely  kept 
for  show."  It  was  proper  that  corporal  Trim  should  take  his  seat 
*  Crabbe — "  The  Borough."  t  "  Sir  Launcelot  Greaves." 


396  HISTORY   OF   ENGLAND. 

in  the  kitchen  of  the  Village  inn  ;  and  natural  that  the  sick  lieuten- 
ant's son  should  make  at  the  kitchen  fire  a  piece  of  thin  toast 
that  his  father  fancied  with  a  glass  of  sack.  But  Parson  Adams, 
and  Parson  Barnabas,  and  the  surgeon,  and  the  exciseman,  drink- 
ing in  the  kitchen,  is  a  scene  of  other  times.  Forty  years  later, 
landlords  and  landladies  were  growing  exclusive,  and  despised  vul- 
gar company.  The  Lutheran  clergyman,  Moritz,  set  out  upon  a 
pedestrian  tour  to  Oxford  and  the  midland  counties.  Walking 
seems  to  have  been  considered  in  those  days  only  fit  for  the  poor- 
est. The  tired  and  hungry  German  enters  an  inn  at  Eton,  and 
with  difficulty  obtains  something  to  eat,  and  a  bed-room  that  much 
resembled  a  prison  for  malefactors.  "  Whatever  I  got,  they  seem- 
ed to  give  me  with  such  an  air  as  showed  too  plainly  they  consid- 
ered me  a  beggar.  I  must  do  them  the  justice  to  own,  however, 
that  they  suffered  me  to  pay  like  a  gentleman."  He  was  rejected 
when  he  applied  for  a  bed,  even  at  common  ale-houses.  At  last  he 
obtained  a  place  of  refuge  at  Nettlebed.  "  They  showed  me  into 
the  kitchen,  and  set  me  down  to  sup  at  the  same  table  with  some 
soldiers  and  the  servants.  I  now,  for  the  first  time,  found  myself 
in  one  of  those  kitchens  I  had  so  often  read  of  in  Fielding's  fine 
novels ;  and  which  certainly  gave  me,  on  the  whole,  a  very  accur- 
ate idea  of  English  manners."  The  next  day,  being  Sunday,  the 
pedestrian,  having  put  on  clean  linen,  was  shown  into  the  parlour ; 
and  "  was  now  addressed  by  the  most  respectful  term,  sir  ;  where- 
as the  evening  before  I  had  been  called  only  master." 

Of  the  infinite  diversities  of  the  Public  Refreshment  life  of  Lon- 
don, there  are  ample  materials  for  a  full  description  if  our  space 
would  afford  any  such  elaboration.  The  kindly  Scot  who  let  a 
lodging  to  Roderick  Random  over  his  chandler's  shop,  told  him, 
"  there  are  two  ways  of  eating  in  this  town  for  men  of  your  condi- 
tion— the  one  more  creditable  and  expensive  than  the  other;  the 
first  is  to  dine  at  an  eating-house,  frequented  by  well  dressed  peo- 
ple only ;  and  the  other  is  called  diving,  practised  by  those  who 
are  either  obliged  or  inclined  to  live  frugally."  The  young  surgeon 
was  disposed  to  try  the  diving,  if  it  were  not  infamous.  His  land- 
lord gave  him  convincing  proof  of  its  propriety :  "  I  have  seen, 
many  a  pretty  gentleman,  with  a  laced  waistcoat,  dine  in  that  man- 
ner very  comfortably  for  threepence  half -penny,  and  go  afterwards 
to  the  coffee-house,  where  he  made  a  figure  with  the  best  lord  in 
in  the  land."  The  experiment  is  determined  on,  and  the  hero  of  the 
novel  dines  luxuriously  off  shin  of  beef,  "surrounded  by  a  company 
of  hackney  coachmen,  chairmen,  draymen,  and  a  few  footmen  out  of 
place  or  on  board  wages,"  When  be  is  become  more  ambitious, 


PUBLIC   REFRESHMENT   PLACES    OF   LONDON.  397 

he  dines  at  an  "  Ordinary  " — a  mode  very  different  from  the  French 
table  d'hote,and  never  quite  naturalized  in  London.  The  ordinary  had 
more  success  in  the  suburbs  —  such  as  Goldsmith  frequented. 
"  There  was  a  very  good  ordinary  of  two  dishes  and  a  pastry,  kept 
at  this  time  at  Highbury-barn,  at  tenpence  per  head,  including  a 
penny  to  the  waiter  ;  and  the  company  generally  consisted  of 
literary  characters,  a  few  Templars,  and  some  citizens  who  had 
left  off  trade."  *  The  chop-houses  were  more  popular  than  the 
ordinaries.  "  In  these  common  refectories  you  may  always  find 
the  jemmy  attorney's  clerk,  the  prim  curate,  the  walking  physi- 
cian, the  captain  upon  half-pay."  f  The  tavern  life  of  Dr.  Johnson 
is  as  familiar  to  us  as  his  rusty  wig.  The  houses  of  entertainment 
which  he  frequented  are  as  famous  as  the  Devil  Tavern  of  his 
dramatic  namesake.  We  know  by  common  fame,  as  well  as  from 
Boswell,  of  "  the  Mitre  Tavern  in  Fleet-street,  where  he  loved  to 
sit  up  late  "' — the  "  old  rendezvous  "  were  grave  divines  and  smart 
lawyers  came  to  listen  to  his  violent  politics,  his  one-sided  criticism, 
his  displays  of  learning,  his  indignation  against  vice  and  meanness, 
his  banter  of  Goldsmith,  and  his  insolence  to  Boswell.  Johnson 
maintained  that  "  a  tavern  chair  was  the  throne  of  human  felicity." 
"There  is  nothing,"  he  affirmed,  "which  has  been  yet  contrived  by 
man,  by  which  so  much  happiness  is  produced  as  by  a  good  tavern 
or  inn ;  " — and  then  he  repeated,  "  with  great  emotion,"  Shen- 
stone's  lines  : 

"  Whoe'er  has  travell'd  life's  dull  round, 
Where'er  his  stages  may  have  been, 
May  sigh  to  think  he  still  has  found 
The  warmest  welcome  at  an  inn." 

When  Goldsmith,  to  complete  what  he  called  "  a  shoemaker's 
holiday,"  had  finished  his  refection  at  Highbury-barn,  he  and  his 
companions,  about  six  o'clock  in  the  evening,  "  adjourned  to  White 
Conduit-house  to  drink  tea;  and  concluded  by  supping  at  the 
Grecian  or  Temple-exchange  coffee-house,  or  at  the  Globe  in  Fleet- 
street."  White  Conduit-house,  near  Islington,  was  an  especial 
resort  of  the  citizens.  The  coffee-houses,  although  frequented  by 
peculiar  classes,  were  open  to  all  men.  The  "  Connoisseur  "  has 
described  the  coffee-houses  of  1754.  Garraway's,  frequented  by 
stockbrokers ;  the  Chapter,  by  booksellers  ;  the  Bedford,  "  crowded 
every  night  with  men  of  parts,"  who  echoed  jokes  and  bon-mots 
from  box  to  box  ;  White's,  where  persons  of  quality  resorted,  who 

*  Quoted  from  "  The  European  Magazine  "  in  Foster's  "  Life  and  Times  of  Ohyei 
Goldsmith,"  book  iv. 

t  "  Connoisseur,"  June  6,  1750. 


398  HISTORY   OF    ENGLAND. 

do  not  trouble  themselves  with  literary  debates,  as  at  the  Bedford. 
"  They  employed  themselves  more  fashionably  at  whist  for  the 
trifle  of  a  thousand  pounds  the  rubber,  or  by  making  bets  on  the 
lie  of  the  day."  *  The  fashionable  coffee-houses  were  gradually 
transformed  into  exclusive  clubs,  of  which  form  of  social  life  we 
shall  have  presently  to  speak.  The  more  plebeian  coffee-house  had 
sometimes  to  endure  intruders,  who  asserted  the  independence 
which  Englishmen  sturdily  maintained  in  .the  last  century.  Dr. 
Thomas  Campbell,  in  1775,  strolled  into  the  Chapter  coffee-house, 
which  he  heard  was  remarkable  for  a  large  collection  of  books,  and 
a  reading  society.  "  Here  I  saw  a  specimen  of  English  freedom. 
A  whitesmith  in  his  apron,  and  some  of  his  saws  under  his  arm, 
came  in,  sat  down,  and  called  for  his  glass  of  punch  and  the  paper, 
both  which  he  used  with  as  much  ease  as  a  lord.  Such  a  man,  in 
Ireland,  and  I  suppose  in  France  too,  or  almost  any  other  country, 
would  not  have  shown  himself  with  his  hat  on,  nor  any  way,  unless 
sent  for  by  some  gentleman :  now  really  every  other  person  in  the 
room  was  well  dressed."  f  The  Irish  Dr.  Campbell  must  have  in- 
deed been  surprised  at  the  contrast  between  England  and  Ireland, 
where,  according  to  Arthur  Young,  nothing  satisfies  a  landlord  but 
unlimited  submission.  "  Disrespect,  or  anything  tending  towards 
sauciness,  he  may  punish  with  bis  cane  or  his  horsewhip  with  the 
most  perfect  security."  J 

"  Such  places  of  pleasure  as  are  totally  set  apart  for  the  use  of 
the  great  world  I  meddle  not  with."  Thus  writes  Fielding,  in  his 
capacity  of  magistrate.  §  He  goes  on  to  say,  "though  Ranelagh 
and  Vauxhall,  by  reason  of  their  price,  are  not  entirely  appropria- 
ted to  the  people  of  fashion,  yet  they  are  seldom  frequented  by  any 
below  the  middle  rank."  Ranelagh  was  opened  in  1742:  "The 
prince,  princess,  duke,  and  much  nobility,  and  much  mob  besides, 
were  there,"  according  to  Walpole.  In  two  years  Ranelagh  had 
"  totally  beat  Vauxhall."  The  usual  amusement  was  to  parade 
round  and  round  the  Rotunda.  The  dullness  was  occasionally 
relieved  by  the  depravity  of  the  masquerade.  Nevertheless,  on 
ordinary  nights,  the  dazzling  illumination  of  the  building ;  the  music ; 
the  cheap  refreshments  (half-a-crown  entrance  included  tea,  coffee, 

*  No.  I. 

t  "  Diary  of  a  Visit  to  England,  in  1775."  "The  Edinburgh  Review"  (October, 
1859)  gives  an  interesting  article  on  this  curious  book,  published  at  Sydney  in  r354.  The 
Reviewer  supposes  that  his  copy  is  "the  only  one  on  this  side  of  the  equator."  The 
author  of  this  History  met  with  a  copy  at  the  French  Exhibition  of  1855  ;  and  seeing  its 
peculiar  value  wrote  several  notices  of  it,  during  his  visit  to  Paris,  in  an  English  jouraalj 
in  which  he  had  an  interest,  "  The  Town  and  Country  Newspaper." 

t  "  Tour  in  Ireland,"  vol.  ii.  p.  127.  i 

§  "  Causes  of  the  Increase  of  Robberies  ;"  section  i. 


RANELAGH . — VAUXHALL. 


399 


or  punch) ;  the  opportunity  of  looking  upon  lords  with  stars  and 
ladies  with  hoops, — these  attractions  drew  a  motley  group  to  Rane- 
lagh,  who  were  either  genteel  or  affected  gentility.  The  landlady 
of  the  Prussian  clergyman,  a  tailor's  widow,  told  him  that  she  always 
fixed  on  one  day  of  the  year  in  which,  without  fail,  she  hired  a 
coach  and  drove  to  Ranelagh.*  Johnson  moralises  upon  this  scene  : 
"  When  I  first  entered  Ranelagh  it  gave  an  expansion  and  gay 
sensation  to  my  mind,  such  as  I  never  experienced  anywhere  else. 
But,  as  Xerxes  wept  when  he  viewed  his  immense  army,  and  con- 
sidered that  not  one  of  that  great  multitude  would  be  alive  a  hun- 
dred years  afterwards,  so  it  went  to  my  heart  to  consider  that  there 
was  not  one  in  all  that  brilliant  circle  that  was  not  afraid  to  so 

O 

home  and  think."  f  Vauxhall  was  cheaper  than  Ranelagh  in  its 
price  of  admission,  but  far  more  costly  in  its  refreshments.  The 
citizen  takes  his  wife  and  two  daughters  to  the  garden ;  grumbles 
over  a  chicken,  no  bigger  than  a  partridge,  which  costs  half-a- 
crown,  and  vows  that  the  ham  is  a  shilling  an  ounce.  As  he  leaves 
the  lamp-lit  walks,  he  moralises  also  :  "  It  would  not  have  cost  me 
above  fourpence-halfpenny  to  have  spent  my  evening  at  Sot's  Hole  ; 
and  what  with  the  coach-hire,  and  all  together,  here's  almost  a 
pound  gone,  and  nothing  to  show  for  it."J  There  was  a  great 
deal  of  good  company  indeed,  declared  the  citizen's  wife,  though 
the  gentlemen  were  so  rude  as  to  stare  at  her  through  their  spy- 
glasses. Lady  Caroline  Petersham,  "  looking  gloriously  jolly  and 
ha'ndsome,"  goes  to  Vauxhall  with  a  large  party,  of  which  were 
lord  Granby,  "  very  drunk,"  and  Horace  Walpole,  and  Harry 
Vane.  Lady  Caroline  minced  seven  chickens  in  a  china  dish,  and 
steward  them  over  a  lamp ;  and  Betty  the  fruit-girl  brought  her 
strawberries  and  cherries,  and  supped  by  them  at  a  little  table.  "  The 
whole  air  of  our  party  was  sufficient  to  take  up  the  whole  attention 
of  the  gardens  ;  so  much  so,  that  from  eleven  o'clock  till  half  an 
hour  after  one,  we  had  the  whole  concourse  round  our  booth,"  and 
Harry  Vane  took  up  a  bumper  and  drank  their  healths. §  Mr.  and 
Mrs.  Tibbs  were  humble  imitators  of  Lady  Caroline  Petersham 
and  Harry  Vane.  They  "  would  sit  in  none  but  a  genteel  box  ;  a 
box  where  they  might  see  and  be  seen."  ||  The  Pantheon  was 
opened  in  1772 — "a  new  winter  Ranelagh  in  Oxford  Road."  Dr. 
Campbell  was  there  in  1 775,  and  saw  "  the  duke  of  Cumberland 
and  lady  Grosvenor,  a  fine  woman,  lost  to  all  sense  of  modesty  ; " 
and  "  lady  Archer,  painted  like  a  doll,  whose  feathers  nodded  like 

*  Moritz,  "  Travels  through  England."  t  Boswel!,  1777. 

t  Connoisseur,  No.  68.  §  Walpole  to  Montague,  June  23,  175*. 

H  "  Citizen  of  the  World,"  No.  71- 


400  HISTORY   OF   ENGLAND. 

the  plumes  of  Mambrino's  helmet;"  and  some  still  more  disreputa- 
ble ladies  who  had  longer  peacock  feathers.*  Such  was  the  mixed 
society  of  the  public  places  of  London,  before  the  people  of  quality 
grew  more  exclusive,  and  set  up  coteries  in  which  profligacy  could 
be  screened  from  vulgar  eyes. 

It  has  been  said,  "  The  Stage,  at  this  period  (1774),  was  either 
a  school  of  immorality,  or  a  vehicle  of  slander."  f  We  venture 
to  think  that  the  Stage,  at  this  period,  was  singularly  untainted 
with  the  grosser  vices  of  society ;  and  that  what  is  termed  its 
slander  was  a  fearless  expression  of  contempt  for  crimes  and 
follies  which  even  the  pulpit  suffered  to  flourish  in  their  rankness. 
Looking  candidly  at  the  time  when  Wycherley,  Vanbrugh,  Con- 
greve,  Farquhar,  and  Mrs.  Centlivre,  had  been  succeeded,  as  the 
popular  dramatists,  by  Goldsmith,  Colman,  Cumberland,  Murphy, 
Sheridan,  and  Mrs.  Cowley,  it  can  scarcely  be  denied  that  the 
theatre  was,  comparatively,  a  school  of  purity.  Blemishes  of 
course  there  were.  It  was  still  too  much  the  fashion  to  assign 
the  virtues  of  truth  and  sincerity  to  the  dissipated,  and  the  vices 
of  hypocrisy  and  meanness  to  the  decorous.  Situations  and 
expressions  that  would  not  now  be  tolerated  were  presented  and 
uttered  without  offence.  But  there  was  no  systematic  endeavour 
to  make  licentiousness  the  foundation  and  corner-stone  of  wit. 
The  chief  complaint  against  the  stage  of  that  time  was,  that  "  the 
most  popular  plays  and  farces,  if  they  were  not  founded  on  the 
scandal  of  the  day,  contained  pointed  allusions  to  the  gossip  of 
political  and  fashionable  society,  and  persons  conspicuous  in 
either."  J  Political  and  fashionable  society  had  scarcely  a  right 
to  complain  of  the  scandal,  when  it  was  so  little  careful  of  its  own 
reputation.  We  may  well  believe  that  the  personalities  of  Foote, 
objectionable  as  a  system  of  personal  satire  always  must  be,  kept 
many  of  the  fashionable  in  awe  of  ridicule,  who  held  in  scorn  the 
disapprobation  of  the  classes  below  them  in  rank  ;  and  somewhat 
abated  the  imitative  ambition  of  many  of  the  rich  pretenders  to 
distinction  of  the  middle  classes,  who  esteemed  their  fellows  only 
in  the  proportion  of  their  wealth. § 

The  Theatre,  under  the  management  of  Garrick,  directed,  how- 
ever imperfectly,  the  course  of  public  taste.  He  did,  what  Betterton 
had  done  before  him,  he  gave  Shakspere  an  extended  popularity 

*  "  Diary,"  p.  47. 

t  Massey — "  History  of  England  during  the  reign  of  George  III.,"  vol.  ii.  p.  220. 

t  Ibid. 

§  The  masterly  essay  of  Mr.  Forster  on  "  Samuel  Foote,"  amply  refutes  the  notion 
that  he  was  a  mere  mimic  who  caricatured  peculiarities  of  manner,  and  an  unprincipled 
lampooner  who  sold  his  forbearance. 


THE   THEATRE. — GARRICK.  401 

by  his  wonderful  power  as  an  actor.  But  it  was  amongst  the 
exaggerations  of  that  flattery  which  had  attended  Garrick  when 
living,  and  followed  him  in  death,  to  pretend  that  the  actor  had 
given  new  life  to  the  poet ;  that  Garrick  and  Shakspere  were  for 
ever  to  shine  as  "  twin  stars."  There  had  been  thirteen  editions 
of  Shakspere's  Plays  when  it  was  pretended  that  they  were  sunk 
to  death  and  lay  in  night ;  *  of  which  nine  editions  had  appeared 
in  the  preceding  forty  years.  Garrick  did  also  what  Tate  had 
done  before  him.  He  mangled  Shakspere,  giving  improved  ver- 
sions -of  Romeo  and  Juliet,  the  Midsummer  Night's  Dream,  The 
Tempest,  the  Taming  of  the  Shrew,  the  Winter's  Tale,  Cymbeline, 
and  Hamlet.  He  patched  the  mammock'd  plays  with  tawdry  rags, 
in  the  "  design  to  adapt  them  to  the  present  taste  of  the  public."  f 
His  conception  of  Shakspere  was  as  imperfect  as  his  notion  of  the 
costume  in  which  Shakspere's  characters  should  be  presented. 
But  Garrick  unquestionably  made  the  people  understand  the  true 
and  the  natural  in  dramatic  art,  as  opposed  to  the  pomposity  and 
the  exaggeration  of  the  actors  whom  he  supplanted.  Garrick, 
according  to  the  critical  Mr.  Partridge,  did  nothing  in  Hamlet 
beyond  what  any  man  would  do  in  similar  circumstances  :  "  I  am 
sure  if  I  had  seen  a  ghost,  I  should  have  looked  in  the  very  same 
manner,  and  done  just  as  he  did."  The  king,  who  spoke  "  half 
as  loud  again,"  was  the  actor  for  Partridge's  money.  J  The  town 
had  sense  enough  to  confirm  the  verdict  of  Churchill,  in  the 
"Rosciad,"  of  "  Garrick,  take  the  chair." 

The  Bath  of  the  middle  of  the  last  century  is  familiar  to  all 
readers  of  the  light  literature  of  that  period.  The  city,  early  in 
the  reign  of  Anne,  began  to  be  frequented  by  people  of  fashion ; 
but  the  nobility  refused  to  associate  with  the  gentry  at  any  public 
entertainments.  Gentlemen  came  to  the  balls  in  boots,  and  ladies 
in  aprons.  A  dictator  arose  in  the  person  of  Mr.  Richard  Nash, 
who  was  elected  Master  of  the  Ceremonies,  and  presided  over  the 
company  who  assembled  in  a  booth  to  dance  and  game.§  During 
a  reign  of  many  years  this  king  of  Bath  had  got  his  unruly  subjects 
into  tolerable  order.  He  had  compelled  the  squires  to  put  off  their 
boots  when  they  came  to  the  balls,  and  the  ladies  to  forego  their 
aprons.  His  dominions  were  the  resort  of  all  the  sharpers  and  dupes 
in  the  land,  when  the  London  season  was  over.  Every  game  of 

*  Epitaph  on  Garrick  in  Westminster  Abbey : 

"Though  sunk  to  death  the  forms  the  Poet  drew, 

The  Actor's  genius  bade  them  breathe  anew." 

t  "  Biographka  Dramatica."  t  "  Tom  Jones." 

§  Goldsmith—"  Life  of  Nash." 

VOL.  VI.— 26. 


402  HISTORY   OF   ENGLAND. 

chance  was  here  played  without  restraint,  and  Nash  had  his  full 
share  of  the  spoil  of  the  unwary.  At  Tunbridge  he  established  a 
colony ;  and,  like  a  great  monarch,  he  often  travelled  there  in  state  to 
receive  the  homage  of  his  subjects,  drawn  in  a  post-chariot  by 
six  grays,  with  out-riders,  footmen,  and  French  horns.  ^All  went 
merrily  till  a  cruel  legislature  passed  an  Act  to  declare  Basset  and 
Hazard  and  all  other  games  of  chance  illegal.  The  statute  was 
evaded  ;  and  an  amended  law  was  next  year  passed,  to  declare  all 
games  with  one  die  or  more,  or  with  any  instrument  with  numbers 
thereon,  to  be  illicit.  The  law-makers  did  not  foresee  fhat  an 
instrument  with  letters  thereon  might  be  as  effectual ;  and  the 
well-known  game  of  E.  O.  was  invented,  and  first  set  up  at  Tun- 
bridge.  Nash  brought  the  game  to  Bath,  not  to  offend  the  deco- 
rum of  the  Assembly-Room,  but  to  be  carried  on  snugly  in  private 
houses,  to  which  Nash  introduced  those  who  had  money  to  lose, 
confederating  with  the  E.  O.  table-keepers  for  a  share  of  their 
profits.  This  answered  for  some  time,  until  another  statute  effect- 
ually put  down  all  gaming-houses  and  gaming-tables,  as  far  as  law 
could  accomplish  their  suppression.  There  was  no  resource  for 
the  persecuted  people  of  quality  but  to  establish  private  clubs. 


VIEW   OF   MANNERS   CONTINUED.  403 


CHAPTER  XXII. 

View  of  manners  continued.— The  Duke  of  Queensberry.— Club-life.— Excessive  Gaming. 
—Excesses  of  Charles  Fox. — Dress. — Conversation.— The  Squires  of  England.— The 
Country  Justice.— The  Clergy  of  England. — The  Universities. — Professional  Classes. 
—The  Mercantile  Class.— The  Lower  orders.— The  Rabble.— Mobs.— Police  of  Lon- 
don.— The  Prisons. — Social  Reformers. — Howard. — Coram. — Hanway. — Raikes. — 
Education. — Rise  and  Growth  of  Methodism. 

A  FEW  years  after  the  beginning  of  the  present  century,  there 
was  to  be  seen  in  Piccadilly,  on  every  sunny  day,  an  emaciated 
old  man  sitting  in  a  balcony,  holding  a  parasol.  The  coachman  of 
the  Bath  road  as  he  drove  by  would  tell  some  wondering  passenger 
that  there  was  the  wicked  duke  of  Queensberry;  that  he  kept. a 
man  in  readiness  to  follow  any  female  not  insensible  to  the  be- 
witching ogles  of  his  glass  eye;  that  his  daily  milk  bath  was  trans- 
ferred to  the  pails  of  the  venders  of  milk  around  Park-lane  ;  with 
many  other  tales,  more  befitting  the  days  of  the  second  Charles 
than  of  the  third  George.  This  very  notorious  nobleman  died  in 
1810,  at  the  age  of  eighty-six.  As  Dr.  Johnson  was  the  link  be- 
tween the  varying  literature  of  two  periods,  the  duke  of  Queens- 
berry  was  the  link  between  the  changed  profligacy  of  two  genera- 
tions. He  had  flourished  as  the  earl  of  March  and  a  lord  of  the 
bed-chamber  in  the  times  when  to  violate  every  decency  of  life 
was  to  establish  a  claim  to  wit  and  spirit ;  when  "  at  the  rehearsal, 
on  Wednesday  night,  of  the  Speech,  at  lord  Halifax's,  lord  Lich- 
field  came  extremely  drunk,  and  proposed  amendments  ;  "  *  when 
sir  Francis  Dashwood,  Chancellor  of  the  Exchequer  in  1762,  held 
his  frantic  orgies  with  his  brother  "  Franciscans  "  at  Medmenham 
Abbey,  drinking  obscene  toasts  out  of  a  sacred  chalice  ;  when 
George  Selwyn  said,  with  as  much  truth  as  wit,  when  one  of  the 
waiters  at  Arthur's  Club  was  committed  on  a  charge  of  felony, 
"  What  a  horrid  idea  he  will  give  of  us  to  the  people  in  Newgate." 
Queensberry  lived  on,  into  an  age  of  comparative  decorum,  which 
to  him  was  as  insipid  as  he  thought  the  Thames  seen  from  his 
Richmond  villa  :  "  I  am  quite  tired  of  it — there  it  goes,  flow,  flow, 
flow,  always  the  same."  f  He  had  no  resources  for  amusement 

*  "  Selwyn  and  his  Contemporaries,"  vol.  i.  p.  352. 
t  "  Life  of  Wilberforce,"  vol.  iii.  p.  417. 


404  HISTORY   OF    ENGLAND. 

out  of  the  libertine  society  of  the  turf  and  the  gaming-house. 
Even  these  resorts  had  become  decent.  He  could  no  longer  sup 
with  the  duke  of  York  (the  brother  of  George  III.)  as  in  1776, 
"with  some  of  the  opera  girls."*  "Information,  as  acquired  by 
books,  he  always  treated  with  great  contempt."  f  There  was  no- 
thing left  for  him  to  do,  as  a  vigorous  octogenarian,  but  to  sit  in 
the  balcony  at  the  corner  of  Park-lane,  gazing  upon  "  the  full  tide 
of  human  existence ; "  or  retire  to  his  drawing-room  to  enjoy  what 
Wraxall  calls  a  "classic exhibition,"  which  if  the  unrefined  passers- 
by  had  chanced  to  see  they  would  have  broken  every  window  of 
that  mansion  of  ill-fame.  He  had  utterly  neglected  the  duties  of 
his  station ;  he  had  regarded  his  tenantry  as  the  mere  slaves  of 
his  will,  and  the  poor  upon  his  estates  as  vermin  that  might  be 
buried  in  the  ruins  of  dilapidated  hovels.  Sir  Walter  Scott  de- 
scribed, in  1813,  the  rebuilding  of  the  cottages  at  Drumlanrig,  by 
the  duke  of  Buccleugh  (the  inheritor  of  the  estate),  for  pensioners 
who,  in  the  days  of  "old  Q."  were  "  pining  into  rheumatisms  and 
agues,  in  neglected  poverty."  J 

Time  has  removed  the  veil  that  hid  the  Club-life  of  Queens- 
berry  and  his  set  from  the  gaze  of  contemporaries.  We  are  now 
permitted  to  see  the  fine  gentlemen  of  the  days  of  Chatham  and 
lord  North  pursuing  their  vocation  of  gambling  with  the  assiduous 
perseverance  of  the  most  money-getting  tradesman.  If  they  were 
ruined  there  were  two  resources  against  starvation — a  place,  or  a 
wife.  "You  ask  me  how  play  uses  me  this  year,"  writes  the  hon. 
Henry  St.  John  to  Selwyn  in  1766  ;  "  I  am  sorry  to  say  very  ill, 
as  it  has  already,  since  October,  taken  8oo/.  from  me  ;  nor  am  I  in 
a  likely  way  to  re-imburse  myself  soon  by  the  emoluments  of  any 
place  or  military  preferment,  having  voted  the  other  evening  in  a 
minority."  §  This  distinguished  honourable,  for  whose  misfor- 
tunes it  was  the  bounden  duty  of  the  government  to  have  provided 
a  refuge,  became  lord  Bolingbroke.  He  still  pursued  his  calling 
with  indifferent  success  in  1777,  when  Charles  Townshend  writes 
to  Selwyn,  "  Your  friend  lord  Bolingbroke's  affairs  are  in  a  much 
more  prosperous  state  than  those  of  the  public.  He  is  gone  down 
to  Bath  in  pursuit  of  a  lady,  who  he  proposes  should  recruit  his 
finances.  .  .  .  It  is  said  she  has  accepted  his  proposal."  || 
The  reputation  of  lord  Sandwich  has  survived  as  one  of  the  most 
profligate  in  his  private  life,  and  one  of  the  meanest  in  his  public 

*  "  Selwyn,"  vol.  ii.  p.  47.  t  Craxal],  "  Memoirs." 

t  Letter  to  Joanna  Baillie,  in  Lockhart's  "  Life  of  Scott." 

§  "  Selwyn,"  vol.  ii.  p.  102. 

y  "  Selwyn  and  his  Contemporaries,"  vol.  iii.  p.  347, 


EXCESSIVE   GAMING.  405 

career.  His  club-gambling  has  given  a  name  to  "a  bit  of  beef 
between  two  slices  of  bread,"  the  only  food  he  took  for  four-and- 
twenty hours  without  ever  quitting  his  game.*  Common  men  pass 
away  from  the  gambling  clubs,  whether  to  insolvency,  or  suicide, 
or  death  in  a  duel,  without  much  sympathy  from  their  fellows, 
who,  like  lord  Sandwich,  are  too  much  absorbed  in  their  thirst  for 
lucre  to  take  warning  from  the  fate  of  those  they  call  their  friends. 
The  right  hon.  Tom  Foley  is  sold  up.  The  rev.  Dr.  Warner  gives 
an  amusing  account  of  the  proceedings  to  George  Selwyn.  The 
creditors  could  not  take  the  heir-looms ;  but  every  personal  article 
was  sold,  whether  of  the  right  honourable  or  his  lady.  "  He  and 
she  are  left  there  among  their  heir-looms,  chairs  and  tables,  with- 
out any  thing  to  put  upon  them,  or  upon  themselves,  when  the 
clothes  on  their  backs  become  dirty."  f  The  hon.  John  Darner 
shot  himself  at  the  Bedford  Arms  in  1776.  Lord  Carlisle,  who  at 
this  time  was  himself  plunged  in  difficulties,  says  of  this  event,  "  It 
is  a  bad  example  to  others  in  misery.  .  .  .  There  never  ap- 
peared anything  like  madness  in  him,  yet  the  company  he  kept 
seemed  indeed  but  a  bad  preparation  for  eternity."  J  At  Bath, 
Nash  dealt  rather  severely  with  the  duellist  gamesters,  for  a  few 
mischances  might  have  thinned  the  numbers*  of  his  votaries  by  a 
general  panic.  He  forbad  the  wearing  of  swords,  "  as  they  often 
tore  the  ladies'  dresses,  and  frightened  them; "  and  when  he  heard 
that  a  challenge  was  given  and  accepted,  he  immediately  procured 
an  arrest  for  both  parties. 

On  the  24th  of  June,  1776,  Gibbon,  writing  to  his  friend  Hol- 
royd,  and  dating  from  Almack's,  says  :  "  Town  grows  empty ;  and 
this  house,  where  I  have  passed  very  agreeable  hours,  is  the  only 
place  which  still  unites  the  flower  of  the  English  youth.  The  style 
of  living,  though  somewhat  expensive,  is  exceedingly  pleasant, 
and,  notwithstanding  the  rage  of  play,  I  have  found  more  enter- 
taining and  even  rational  society  here  than  in  any  other  club  to 
which  I  belong."  Amongst  "the  flower  of  the  English  youth" 
was  the  earl  of  Carlisle,  who,  when  Gibbon  thus  wrote,  was  in  his 
twenty-eighth  year.  He  was  a  man  of  talent ;  ambitious  to  be  a 
poet  and  a  statesman  ;  happy  in  his  marriage  ;  fond  of  his  child- 
ren; surrounded  with  every  worldly  advantage.  In  July,  1776,  he 
writes  to  Selwyn  :  "  I  have  undone  myself,  and  it  is  to  no  purpose 
to  conceal  from  you  my  abominable  madness  and  folly.  .  .  . 
I  never  lost  so  much  in  five  times  as  I  have  done  to-night,  and  am 
in  debt  to  the  house  for  the  whole."  A  few  days  after  this  loss  of 

*  Grosley — "  Tour  to  London  in  765,"  vol.  i.  p.  1149. 

t  "  Selwyn,''   iv.  147.  t  Ibid.,  vm.  148- 


406  HISTORY   OF    ENGLAND. 

ten  thousand  pounds,  he  again  writes  to  his  friend,  "  I  do  protest 
to  you  that  I  am  so  tired  of  my  present  manner  of  passing  my 
time — however  I  may  be  kept  in  countenance  by  the  number  of 
those  of  my  own  rank  and  superior  fortune — that  I  never  reflect 
upon  it  without  shame."  Lord  Carlisle  abandoned  his  dangerous 
course  when  not  too  late.  This  was  not  the  case  with  one  of  far 
higher  intellect.  There  is  no  scenic  representation  of  the  horrors 
of  gambling  so  truly  pathetic  as  the  history  of  Charles  Fox,  nor 
one  which  conveys  more  fearful  warnings. 

The  precocious  son  of  lord  Holland  was  furnished,  by  the  over- 
weening fondness  of  his  father,  with  guineas  to  stake  at  the  gaming, 
table  at  Spa,  when  he  was  a  boy  of  fifteen.  "  Let  nothing  be  done," 
said  the  rival  of  Chatham,  "to  break  Charles's  spirit;  the  world 
will  effect  that  business  soon  enough."  He  soon  was  in  Parliament. 
The  acquirements  of  the  young  politician  were  as  extraordinary  as 
his  abilities.  His  profligacy  was  as  remarkable  as  either.  Lord 
Brougham  says :  "  The  dissipated  habits  of  the  times  drew  him, 
before  the  age  of  manhood,  into  the  whirlpool  of  fashionable  excess. 
.  .  .  The  noble  heart  and  sweet  disposition  of  this  great  man 
passed  unscathed  through  an  ordeal  which,  in  almost  every  other 
instance,  is  found  to -deaden  all  the  kindly  emotions."*  Yet  these 
excesses,  at  that  period  of  his  life  when  his  transcendant  powers 
had  placed  him  in  the  first  rank  as  a  party  leader,  materially  dimin- 
ished the  confidence  which  the  nation  would  otherwise  have  reposed 
in  him,  and  not  unjustly  rendered  him  obnoxious  to  his  sovereign. 
They  had  probably  a  more  fatal  consequence  in  the  encouragement 
of  the  heir-apparent  in  a  course  of  profligacy,  which  the  lower  nature 
of  the  prince  of  Wales  cherished  into  that  confirmed  sensuality 
which  rendered  him  unfit  for  the  duties  of  his  high  station,  and  made 
him  odious  as  a  sovereign  to  a  people  who  would  otherwise  have 
supported  him  with  something  better  than  "  mouth-honour."  In 
1772,  Fox  was  a  lord  of  the  Admiralty,  opposing,  as  a  member  of  the 
government,  the  petition  of  some  of  the  clergy  that  subscription  to 
the  thirty-nine  articles  should  not  be  enforced  at  the  Universities. 
Gibbon  writes,  "  Charles  Fox  prepared  himself  for  that  holy  work 
by  passing  twenty-two  hours  in  the  pious  exercise  of  hazard ;  his 
devotion  only  cost  him  about  five  hundred  pounds  an  hour — in  all, 
eleven  thousand  pounds."  Lord  Carlisle  said  of  him  at  this  period  : 
"  He  is  not  following  the  natural  bent  of  his  genius  ;  for  that  would 
lead  him  to  all  serious  inquiry  and  laudable  pursuits."!  In  1778, 
Fox  was  in  opposition — with  a  distant  prospect  of  office.  Lord  Car- 

*  Lord  Brougham — "  Statesmen  of  the  time  of  George  III." 
t  "  Selwyn,"  vol.  iii.  p.  23. 


DRESS.  407 

lisle  then  says,  "  I  do  think  it  does  Charles,  or  ought  to  do,  great 
credit,  that  under  all  his  distresses  he  never  thinks  of  accepting  a 
place  on  terms  that  are  in  the  least  degree  disreputable."  *  In  1 779 
the  same  friend  writes,  "  Charles  tells  me  that  he  has  not  now,  nor 
has  had  for  some  time,  one  guinea,  and  is  happier  on  that  account."  f 
Yet  though  he  possessed  this  extraordinary  elasticity  of  mind — 
could  be  found  calmly  reading  Herodotus  in  the  morning  after 
having  lost  his  last  his  shilling  the  previous  night — yet  his  sense  of 
degradation,  when  he  had  to  borrow  money  of  club-waiters,  and  saw 
his  goods  seized  in  execution,  must  have  been  somewhat  real,  how- 
ever carefully  concealed.  What  might  he  not  have  been,  great  as 
he  was,  had  he  possessed  the  firmness  of  Wilberforce,  founded  upon 
a  juster  sense  of  honour  than  Fox  possessed.  Wilberforce  has 
recorded  his  club-experience  when  he  came  up  to  London,  young 
and  rich,  the  member  for  Hull,  in  1780  :  "  The  very  first  time  I  went 
to  Boodle's,  I  won  twenty-five  guineas  of  the  duke  of  Norfolk.  I 
belonged  at  that  time  to  five  clubs — Miles  and  Evans's,  Brookes's, 
Boodle's,  White's,  and  Goostree's.  The  first  time  I  was  at  Brookes's, 
scarcely  knowing  any  one,  I  joined  from  mere  shyness  in  play  at 
the  Faro  table,  where  George  Selwyn  kept  bank.  A  friend  who 
knew  my  inexperience,  and  regarded  me  as  a  victim  decked  out  for 
sacrifice,  called  out  to  me, '  What,  Wilberforce,  is  that  you  ?  '  Selwyn 
quite  resented  the  interference,  and,  turning  to  him,  said  in  his  most 
expressive  tone,  '  O,  Sir,  don't  interrupt  Mr.  Wilberforce ;  he 
could  not  be  better  employed.' "  t  Some  time  after,  he  was  per- 
suaded to  keep  the  bank  at  a  Faro  table  of  one  of  the  clubs.  "  As 
the  game  grew  deep,"  says  his  son,  "  he  rose  the  winner  of  six 
hundred  pounds.  Much  of  this  was  lost  by  those  who  were  only 
heirs  to  future  fortunes,  and  could  not  therefore  meet  such  a  call 
without  inconvenience.  The  pain  he  felt  at  their  annoyance  cured 
him  of  a  taste  which  seemed  but  too  likely  to  become  predominant."§ 
Pitt  once  displayed  intense  earnestness  in  games  of  chance,  but  he 
suddenly  abandoned  gambling  for  ever.  He  shunned  the  rock  upon 
which  his  rival  had  been  wrecked. 

In  the  letters  of  some  of  the  fine  gentlemen  of  the  time  of  George 
Selwyn,  we  find  them  writing  about  dress  much  in  the  style  of 
boarding-school  misses — giving  their  friends  in  Paris  commissions 
for  velvet  suits  and  embroidered  ruffles.  The  Macaroni  Club  was 
in  great  repute  at  the  beginning  of  the  reign  of  George  III.  Wraxall, 
in  1815,  laments  over  the  change  which  forty  years  had  produced  : 
"  That  costume,  which  is  now  Confined  to  the  levee,  or  the  drawing* 

»  "  Selwyn,"  vol.  iii.  p.  292.  t  Ibid.,  vol.  iv.  p.  165. 

I  "  Life  of  Wilberforce,"  vol.  i.  p.  17.  §  Ibid.,  p.  19. 


408  HISTORY  OF   ENGLAND. 

room,  was  then  worn  by  persons  of  condition,  with  few  exceptions, 
everywhere,  and  every  day."  Mr.  Fox  and  his  friends  "  first  threw 
a  discredit  on  dress.  From  the  House  of  Commons,  and  the  Clubs 
in  St.  James's  Street,  the  contagion  spread  through  the  private  as- 
semblies of  London."  The  glories  of  buckles  and  ruffles  perished 
in  the  ascendancy  of  pantaloons  and  shoe-strings.  "  Dress  never 
totally  fell,  till  the  era  of  Jacobinism  and  of  Equality  in  1 793  and 

1794-"* 

Cowper,  in  the  days  of  his  town  life,  wrote  a  paper  on  "  Conver- 
sation." He  holds  that  it  is  "  in  vain  to  look  for  conversation 
where  we  might  expect  to  find  it  in  the  greatest  perfection,  among 
persons  of  fashion :  there  it  is  almost  annihilated  by  universal  card- 
playing  ;  insomuch  that  I  have  heard  it  given  as  a  reason  why  it  is 
impossible  for  our  present  writers  to  succeed  in  the  dialogue  of 
genteel  comedy,  that  our  people  of  quality  scarce  ever  meet  but  to 
game."  f  There  is  a  prevailing  opinion,  resting  chiefly  upon  the 
reputation  of  George  Selwyn,  that  this  was  the  age  of  conversational 
wit.  The  sayings  of  witty  men  are  always  reported  very  imperfectly. 
They  appear  to  little  advantage  without  the  accessories  that  gave 
them  point.  The  anecdotes  of  Selwyn's  "  social  pleasantry  and  con- 
versational wit,"  appear  now  sufficiently  common-place.  It  does  not 
require  any  great  force  of  genius  to  utter  such  witticisms  as  these  : 
A  member  of  the  Foley  family  having  hurried  to  the  continent  to 
avoid  his  creditors,  Selwyn  remarked,  "  It  is  a  pass-over  that  will 
not  be  much  relished  by  the  Jews ;  "  or  as  this  :  Bruce  having  been 
asked  if  there  were  musical  instruments  in  Abyssinia,  and  replying 
that  he  believed  he  saw  only  one  lyre  there,  Selwyn  whispered, 
"  Yes,  and  there  is  one  less  since  he  left  the  country."  J  More 
vapid  still  were  the  mots  of  James  Hare,  which  had  a  prodigious 
reputation  ;  for  example :  His  report  of  Burgoyne  having  been 
defeated  at  Saratoga  being  discredited,  Hare  said,  "take  it  from 
me,  as  a  flying  rumour."  §  Yet  we  cannot  doubt  that  amidst  the 
frivolity  and  pretence  of  high  society,  the  sterling  qualities  of 
Englishmen  prevailed  over  the  fashionable  attempts  to  imitate 
French  vivacity.  Cowper  truly  says,  "  As  the  English  consist  of 
very  different  humours,  their  manner  of  discourse  admits  of  grea-t 
variety  ;  but  the  whole  French  nation  converse  alike."  ||  -  Arthur 
Young,  travelling  in  France  in  1787,  observes  that  at  the  tables 
d'hote  of  officers  you  have  a  valuable  garniture  of  indecency  o? 

*  Wraxall — "  Historical  Memoirs,"  vol.  i.  p/ 138. 

t  "  Connoisseur,"  Sept.  16,  1756. 

$  "  Selwyn  and  his  Contemporaries,"  vol.  i.  p.  21. 

§  Ibid.,  vol.  iiii.  p.  285.  II  "  Connoisseur." 


THE   SQUIRES   OF   ENGLAND.  409 

nonsense,  and  at  those  of  merchants,  a  mournful  and  stupid  silence. 
"Take  the  mass  of  mankind,  and  you  have  more  good  sense  in 
half  an  hour  in  England,  than  in  half  a  year  in  France."*  It  is 
Government  —  all,  all,  is  Government,  —  he  says.  The  passing 
observations  of  the  poet  and  the  traveller  are  confirmed  by  the 
philosopher  who  looks  back  upon  the  manners  of  that  period,  for  a 
solution,  in  part,  of  the  causes  of  the  French  Revolution  :  "  The 
men  of  that  time,  especially  those  belonging  to  the  middle  and 
upper  ranks  of  society,  who  alone  were  at  all  conspicuous,  were  all 
exactly  alike  '.  .  .  .  Throughout  nearly  the  whole  kingdom 
the  independent  life  of  the  provinces  had  long  been  extinct ;  this 
had  powerfully  contributed  to  render  all  Frenchmen  very  much 

alike In    England,    the    different    classes,    though 

firmly  united  by  common  interests,  still  differed  in  their  habits  and 
feelings  ;  for  political  liberty,  which  possesses  the  admirable  power 
of  placing  the  citizens  of  a  state  in  needful  intercourse  and  mutual 
dependence,  does  not  on  that  account  always  make  them  alike.  It 
is  the  government  of  one  man  which,  in  the  end,  has  the  inevitable 
effect  of  rendering  all  men  alike,  and  all  mutually  indifferent  to 
their  common  fate."  f 

In  England,  "  the  independent  life  of  the  provinces  "  was  as 
vigorous  in  the  days  of  sir  George  Savile  and  the  Associations, 
as  in  the  days  of  John  Hampden  and  Ship-money.  The  squires  of 
England  still  exhibited  the  natural  varieties  of  the  rich  soil  upon 
which  they  flourished.  From  the  monotonous  gambling  of  the 
fashionables  of  St.  James'-street,  it  is  almost  pleasant  to  turn  to  the 
rougher  amusement  of  the  Country  House.  There  was  a  consider- 
able change  in  provincial  manners  during  the  last  half  of  the  reign 
of  George  III.  Fielding  presented  Allworthy,  as  a  portrait  of 
Allen,  the  friend  of  Warburton  ;  benevolent,  placable,  not  learned, 
but  a  competent  judge  of  literature,  improved  by  much  conversa- 
tioa-with  men  of  eminence,  Allworthy  is  one  of  the  class  who,  with 
some  narrowness,  gave  lustre  to  the  great  Country-party  of  the 
House  of  Commons.  Squire  Western,  coarse,  passionate,  violent 
in  his  politics — a  roaring,  drinking  fox-hunter — is  not  to  be  wholly 
despised,  for  out  of  his  rough  material  was  to  be  carved  the  decor- 
ous and  considerate  landlord  of  another  century.  There  were  few 
Allworthys  and  many  Westerns  in  the  last  years  of  George  II. 
Soame  Jenyns  has  admirably  described  a  visit  to  sir  John  Jolly,  he 
proposing  to  exchange  the  bustle  of  London  for  the  soothing  indo- 
lence of  a  rural  retirement.  It  was  the  race  week,  and  a  great 

*  "  Travels  in  France,"  p.  135. 

t  De  Tocqueville— "  France  before  the  Revolution,"  chap.  viii. 


410  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

cavalcade  set  out  from  the  mansion  to  the  country  town.  The  Ordi- 
nary at  the  Red  Lion  before  the  race  ;  the  Assembly,  over  a  stable, 
after  the  race  ;  the  dancing  and  cards  ;  the  cold  chicken  and  negus; 
the  ride  home  as  the  sun  rose — this  repetition  of  the  same  dreary 
round  of  pleasure,  day  by  day,  wearies  the  Londoner,  who  gets 
away  to  his  quiet  lodgings  next  door  to  a  brazier's  at  Charing-cross, 
rather  than  stay  upon  the  assurance  of  the  lady,  that  though  the 
races  were  over  he  should  not  want  diversion,  for  they  should  not 
be  alone  one  hour  for  several  weeks.*  There  is  a  somewhat  loose 
clerical  correspondent  of  George  Selwyn,  who  describes  Leicester 
"  at  reace  time  " — the  country  squires,  with  their  triple  bands  and 
triple  buckles  on  their*  hats,  "  to  keep  in  their  no-brain  ;  " — "  the 
clod-pated  yeoman's  son  in  his  Sunday  clothes, — his  drab  coat  and 
red  waistcoat,  tight  leather  breeches,  and  light  gray  worsted  stock- 
ings, with  one  strap  of  his  shoe  coming  out  from  under  the  buckle 
upon  his  foot, — his  lank  hair,  and  silk  handkerchief,  new  for  reace 
time,  about  his  neck."  With  a  touch  of  real  wit  this  worldly  par- 
son finishes  his  picture  of  the  yeoman's  son : — "  depriving  of  all 
grace  and  rendering  odious  a  well-fancied  oath  from  the  mint  of 
the  metropolis,  by  his  vile  provincial  pronunciation."  f 

The  Squire  sits  for  the  portrait  of  the  Country  Justice  ;  whose 
notions  of  law  are  not  very  different  from  those  of  the  London 
Justice  who  said,  "  he  would  commit  a  servant  to  Bridewell  at  any 
time  when  a  master  or  mistress  desired  it."|  The  fox-hunting 
justice  before  whom  Parson  Adams  is  taken  will  not  condemn  him 
at  once  to  the  hangman  :  "  No,  no ;  you  will  be  asked  what  you 
have  to  say  for  yourself  when  you  come  on  your  trial ;  we  are 
not  trying  you  now  ;  I  shall  only  commit  you  to  gaol."  In 
vain  the  poor  curate  asked,  "  Is  it  no  punishment,  sir,  for  an 
innocent  man  to  be  several  months  in  gaol?"  His  mittimus 
would  have  been  signed,  had  not  a  bystander  affirmed  that  Mr. 
Adams  was  a  clergyman,  and  a  gentleman  of  very  good  char- 
acter. Then  said  the  justice,  "  I  know  how  to  behave  myself  to 
gentlemen  as  well  as  another.  Nobody  can  say  I  have  committed 
a  gentleman  since  I  have  been  in  the  commission."  §  But  squires 
and  justices  were  rapidly  improving.  In  1761,  a  writer  in  a  peri- 
odical work  called  "  The  Genius,"  attributes  to  "  the  intercourse 
between  the  town  and  the  country,  of  late  so  much  more  frequent," 
an  extraordinary  change  which  he  describes  with  a  good  deal  of 
vivacity  :  "  It  is  scarce  half  a  century  ago,  since  the  inhabitants  of 
the  distant  counties  were  regarded  as  a  species  almost  as  different 

*  "  World,"  No.  154.  t  "  Selwyn,"  vol.  iv.  p.  311. 

t  "  Tom  Jones,"  book  vii.  chap.  x.  §  "  Joseph  Andrews." 


THE   CLERGY   OF   ENGLAND.  4H 

from  those  of  the  metropolis  as  the  natives  of  the  Cape  of  Good 
Hope.  Their  manners,  as  well  as  dialect,  were  entirely  provincial ; 
and  their  dress  no  more  resembling  the  habit  of  the  town,  than 
the  Turkish  or  Chinese.  But  time,  which  has  inclosed  commons, 
and  ploughed  up  heaths,  has  likewise  cultivated  the  minds  and 
improved  the  behaviour  of  the  ladies  and  gentlemen  of  the  country. 
We  are  no  longer  encountered  with  hearty  slaps  on  the  backs,  or 
pressed  to  make  a  breakfast  on  cold  meat  and  strong  beer  ;  and  in 
the  course  of  a  tour  through  Great  Britain  you  will  not  meet  with 
a  high-crowned  hat,  or  a  pair  of  red  stockings.  Politeness  and 
taste  seem  to  have  driven  away  the  horrid  spectres  of  rudeness  and 
barbarity  that  haunted  the  old  mansion-house  and  its  purlieus,  and 
to  have  established  their  seats  in  the  country."  *  In  1766,  the 
rev.  W.  Digby  writes  to  Selwyn,  from  Coleshill,  "  Thank  you  for 
your  offer  of  Swift's  works.  They  are  arrived  at  this  place;  for 
you  must  know  we  are  civilized  enough  in  this  country  to  have 
instituted  a  club  called  a  book-club,  where  I  never  saw  pipe  nor 
tobacco,  and  take  in  all  the  new  things  we  choose.  This  respect- 
able corps  consists  of  twenty  neighbouring  clergy  and  squires, 
chosen  by  ballot."  | 

In  the  immediate  vicinity  of  the  Country  Squire  is  the  Country 
Parson.  The  permanent  resident  in  the  parish  is  almost  invaria- 
bly the  Curate.  The  incumbent  is  a  pluralist,  who  passes  much  of 
his  time  in  London,  or  Bath,  or  Tunbridge,  or  in  the  nobleman's 
establishment  as  chaplain  ;  the  arduous  duties  of  his  chaplaincy 
demanding  a  freedom  from  common  parochial  offices,  and  entitling 
him  to  hold  several  preferments  and  to  do  the  duties  of  no  cure 
of  souls.  From  the  Revolution  to  the  Rebellion  of  1745,  the 
orthodox  clergyman  had  a  decided  tendency  to  Jacobitism.  After 
that  period  he  gradually  became  less  earnest  in  politics,  and 
resolutely  applied  himself  to  uphold  government  and  oppose  in- 
novation. He  had  his  own  peculiar  business  in  life  to  perform, 
which  was  chiefly  to  make  himself  as  comfortable  as  possible.  The 
indecorum,  if  not  the  profligacy,  of  a  large  number  of  the  English 
clergy,  for  a  period  of  half  a  century,  is  exhibited  by  too  many  con- 
temporary witnesses  to  be  considered  as  the  exaggeration  of  novel- 
ists, satirical  poets,  travellers,  and  dissenters.  Passages  of  every 
variety  of  writer — private  correspondence  now  laid  open — strictures 
of  those  of  their  own  profession — are  overwhelming  in  their  testi- 
mony to  this  deplorable  laxity  of  morals.  Ridicule,  pity,  indigna- 
tion, produced  little  or  no  change  for  more  than  a  generation.  The 

*  Quoted  in  the  "  Annual  Register,"  for  1761,  p.  206. 
t  "  Selwyn,"  vol.  ii.  p.  23. 


412  HISTORY   OF   ENGLAND. 

curate  of  Fielding,  engaged  in  a  most  excellent  political  discourse 
with  the  squire,  during  which  they  made  a  libation  of  four  bottles 
o£  wine  to  the  good  of  their  country,  is  a  sober  picture.*  The 
young  fellow  of  Smollett,  in  the  rusty  gown  and  cassock,  confedera- 
ting with  the  exciseman  to  cheat  two  farmers  at  cards,  swearing 
terrible  oaths,  and  talking  gross  scandal  of  his  rogue  of  a  vicar,  is 
probably  a  caricature,  f  The  visitation  dinner  of  Goldsmith,  in  which 
all  are  gormandizing,  from  the  bishop  to  Dr.  Marrowfat,  may  be 
received  as  the  fancy-piece  of  a  great  humorist. J  The  Jack  Quick- 
set of  Colman  and  Thornton  is  the  representative  of  those  "or- 
dained sportsmen,  whose  thoughts  are  more  taken  up  with  the 
stable  or  the  dog-kennel  than  the  church  ;  who  are  regarded  by 
their  parishioners  not  as  parsons  of  the  parish,  but  as  squires  in 
orders."  §  The  wits,  it  may  be  said,  are  thus  attacking  a  sacred 
profession  in  the  wantonness  of  their  scurrility.  What  shall  we 
say  to  the  testimony  of  Dr.  Knox,  head-master  of  Tunbridge 
school  ?  "  The  public  have  long  remarked  with  indignation,  that 
some  of  the  most  distinguished  coxcombs,  drunkards,  debauchees, 
and  gamesters  who  figure  at  the  watering-places,  and  all  public 
places  of  resort,  are  young  men  of  the  sacerdotal  order."  ||  What, 
to  the  "  shepherd  "  of  Crabbe  ? 

"  A  jovial  youth,  who  thinks  his  Sunday  task 
As  much  as  God  or  man  can  fairly  ask  ; ' ' 

who  comes  not  to  the  sick  pauper's  bed  ;  and  who,  when  the  bier 
is  borne  to  the  churchyard,  is  too  busy  to  perform  the  last  office 
"  till  the  day  of  prayer."  If  Surely  these  writers  are  not  con- 
spiring against  their  own  order.  Hear  a  sober-minded  traveller, 
if  the  novelists,  essayists,  and  poets  are  not  to  be  credited  :  "  The 
French  clergy  preserved,  what  is  not  always  preserved  in  England, 
an  exterior  decency  of  behaviour.  One  did  not  find  among  them 
poachers  or  fox-hunters,  who,  having  spent  the  morning  in  scamper- 
ing after  hounds,  dedicate  the  evening  to  the  bottle,  and  reel  from 
inebriety  to  the  pulpit.  Such  advertisements  were  never  seen  in 
France  as  I  have  heard  of  in  England  :  '  Wanted  a  curacy  in  a 
good  sporting  country,  where  the  duty  is  light,  and  the  neighbour- 
hood convivial.'  "  **  A  conscientious  writer  has  pointed  to  the 
reverend  Dr.  Warner  as  an  object  of  contemplation  for  "  those 
who  would  hastily  accuse  Fielding  of  exaggeration  in  his  portraitures 

*  "  Tom  Jones,"  book  iv-  c.  10. 

t  "  Roderick  Random,"  c.  9.  t  "  Citizen  of  the  World,"  No.  Iviil. 

§  "  Connoisseur,"  No.  105.  ||  Knox's  "  Essays,"  18. 

t  "  The  Village." 

**  Arthur  Young—"  Travels  in  France,"  1789,  p.  543. 


THE   CLERGY   OF    ENGLAND.  413 

taken  from  the  church."  *  Let  us  regard  a  few  traits  of  this  popu- 
lar preacher  from  his  own  letters.  He  desires  Selwyn  to  send 
him  "  the  magazine,  with  the  delicate  amours  of  the  noble  lord, 
which  must  be  very  diverting."  f  He  describes  a  dinner  with  two 
friends — "  We  have  just  parted  in  a  tolerable  state  of  insensibility 
to  the  ills  of  life."  J  "I  have  been  preaching  this  morning,  and 
am  going  to  dine — where  ? — in  the  afternoon.  We  shall  bolt  the 
door  and — (but  hush  !  softly  !  let  me  whisper  it,  for  it  is  a  violent 
secret,  and  I  shall  be  blown  to  the  devil  if  I  blab,  as  in  this  house 
we  are  Noah  and  his  precise  family) — and  play  at  cards."  §  The 
Reverend  Dr.  Warner  is  an  unimpeachable  witness. 

The  apathy  of  the  Clergy  at  this'  period  was  as  injurious  as 
their  indecorum.  Their  eloquence  was  of  the  tamest  character. 
An  accomplished  foreigner  thus  describes  their  sermons  :  "  The 
pulpit  declamation  is  a  most  tedious  monotony.  The  ministers 
have  chosen  it  through  respect  for  religion,  which,  as  they  affirm, 
proves,  defends,  and  supports  itself  without  having  any  occasion 
for  the  assistance  of  oratory.  With  regard  to  the  truth  of  this 
assertion,  I  appeal  to  themselves,  and  to  the  progress  which  religion 
thus  inculcated  makes  in  England."  ||  Dr.  Campbell  goes  to  the 
Temple  Church,  where  the  brother  of  Thurlow  preached  :  "  The 
discourse  was  the  most  meagre  composition,  and  the  deliveryworse. 
He  stood  like  Gulliver  stuck  in  the  marrow-bone,  with  the  sermon, 
newspaper-like,  in  his  hand,  and  without  grace  or  emphasis  he  in 
slow  cadence  measured  it  forth."  If  Goldsmith  has  hit  upon  the 
true  cause  of  the  dry,  methodical,  and  unaffecting  discourses  of 
the  English  preachers,  delivered  with  the  most  insipid  calmness  : 
"  Men  of  real  sense  and  understanding  prefer  a  prudent  mediocrity 
to  a  precarious  popularity  ;  and  fearing  to  out-do  their  duty,  leave 
it  half  done."  **  He  further  says  that  the  lower  orders  are  neg- 
lected in  exhortations  from  the  pulpit — "  they  who  want  instruc- 
tion most  find  least  in  our  religious  assemblies."  The  fear  of 
being  called  Methodists  was  one  of  the  causes  that  made  too  many 
of  the  clergy  careless  in  their  lives  and  indifferent  in  their  vocation. 

When  Cowper  denounced 

"  A  priesthood,  such  as  Baal's  was  of  old," 

he  tracked  the  "deep  mischief"  to  its  source.  "The  sage,  called 
Discipline,"  had  ceased  to  be  reverenced  in  "  colleges  and  halls  ;;' 
he  had  declined  into  the  vale  of  years  ;  had  fallen  sick  and  died. 
Then  "  study  languished,  emulation  slept,  and  virtue  fled."  The 

*  Forster— "  Life  of  Goldsmith." 

t  "  Selwyn."  iii.  394.  t  Ibid.,  iv.  132.  §  Ibid.,  p.  285. 

||  Grosley— "  Tour  to  London,"  vol.  ii.  p.  105.  IT  "  Diary,"  p.  28. 

**  "  Essays,"  No.  17. 


414  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

schools  became  a  scene  of  solemn  farce  ;  scrutiny  went  stone 
blind;  gowns  were  mere  masquerade.*  Is  this  only  the  declam- 
ation of  a  poetical  enthusiast,  moping  on  the  banks  of  the  Ouse  ?  A 
distinguished  fellow  of  St.  John's  College,  Oxford,  a  master-of-arts, 
describes  the  externals  of  that  consecrated  place — superb  dining 
halls  ;  painted  chapels  ;  a  peculiar  race  in  the  streets  ;  doctors  and 
proctors  in  solemn  procession,  with  velvet  sleeves,  scarlet  gowns,  and 
hoods  black,  red,  and  purple.  He  then  tells  us  what  all  this  parade 
ends  in — the  most  absurd  forms  of  examination  for  degrees,  "in 
which  the  greatest  dunce  usually  gets  his  testimonium  signed  with 
as  much  ease  and  credit  as  the  finest  genius,"  in  one  stage  of  the 
process  ;  and  in  another,  when  "  the  examiners  and  the  candidates 
often  converse  on  the  last  drinking  bout,  or  read  the  newspaper,  or 
a  novel,  or  divert  themselves  as  well  as  they  can  in  any  manner,  till 
the  clock  strikes  eleven,  when  all  parties  descend,  and  the  testi- 
monium is  signed  by  the  masters."  So  much  for  the  Bachelor's 
degree,  which  is  attained  after  four  years'  term-keeping.  For  the 
degree  of  Master-of-arts  three  more  years  must  be  employed  in 
trumpery  formalities  ;  and  then,  "  after  again  taking  oaths  by  whole- 
sale, and  paying  the  fees,"  the  academic  issues  into  the  world 
with  an  "undeniable  passport  to  carry  him  through  it  with  credit."f 
"  Accidental  visitors  to  Oxford,"  writes  Knox,  "are  naturally  led 
to  conclude  that  here,  at  length,  wisdom,  science,  learning,  and 
whatever  else  is  praiseworthy,  for  ever  flourish  and  abound." 
The  Prussian  clergyman,  walking  into  Oxford  at  midnight,  was 
introduced  by  a  courteous  pedestrian,  who  had  overtaken  him  on 
the  road,  to  an  alehouse.  "  How  great,"  he  says,  "  was  my  aston- 
ishment, when,  on  being  shewn  into  a  room,  I  saw  several  gentle- 
men in  academic  dress,  sitting  round  a  large  table,  each  with  his 
pot  of  beer  before  him."  He  thought  it  extraordinary  that  at  this 
unseasonable  hour,  he  should  suddenly  find  himself  in  a  company 
of  Oxonian  clergy.  The  foreigner  was  kindly  received.  He  told 
them  stories  of  riots  in  German  universities.  "  O,  we  are  very  un- 
ruly here,  too,"  said  one  of  the  gentlemen,  as  he  took  a  huge  draught 
of  his  beer,  and  smote  the  table  with  his  fist.  One  "weakly 
and  impiously  attempted  to  be  witty  at  the  expense  of  scripture  ; 
and  I  had  the  good  fortune  to  be  able  to  convict  him  of  his  ignor- 
ance of  its  language  and  meaning."  As  the  morning  drew  near, 
after  a  carousal  which  stupefied  the  German,  the  gentleman  who 
introduced  him  "suddenly  exclaimed,  '  I  must  read  prayers  this 
morning  at  All  Souls.'  "  \  Cambridge  was  not  behind  Oxford  in 

*  "  The  Tas'c."  !>.  2.  t  Knox— Essay  77. 

$  Moritz — "  iVdvo.s  iu  England,  in  1782." 


PROFESSIONAL   CLASSES.  415 

its  capacity  of  qualifying  its  students  as  "  gamesters,  jockies, 
brothellers,  impure."  Wilberforce  entered  St.  John's  in  1776,  at 
the  age  of  seventeen.  He  tells  us  his  experience  :  "  I  was  intro- 
duced, on  the  very  first  night  of  my  arrival,  to  as  licentious  a  set 
of  men  as  can  well  be  conceived.  They  drank  hard,  and  their 
conversation  was  even  worse  than  their  lives.  I  lived  amongst 
them  for  some  time,  though  I  never  relished  their  society  ;  often, 
indeed,  I  was  horror-struck  at  their  conduct ;  and  after  the  first 
year,  I  shook  off  in  great  measure  my  connection  with  them."  He 
got  into  better  society ;  he  lived  much  among  the  Fellows  of  the 
College.  "  But  those,"  he  complains,  "  with  whom  I  was  intimate, 
did  not  act  towards  me  the  part  of  Christians,  or  even  of  honest 
men.  Their  object  seemed  to  be,  to  make  and  keep  me  idle.  If 
ever  I  appeared  studious  they  would  say  to  me,  '  Why  in  the  world 
should  a  man  of  your  fortune  trouble  himself  with  fagging? '"* 
Wilberforce  was  one  of  the  few  who  could  "  escape  contagion,  and 
emerge  pure  from  so  foul  a  pool." 

It  would  be  absurd  to  imagine  that  the  professional  class,  and 
the  trading  class,  were  untainted  amidst  the  corruptions  of  the 
time.  "  Profusion  unrestrained  "  producing  unmitigated  selfish- 
ness, was  not  likely  to  decrease,  during  half  a  century  of  very 
rapidly  increasing  wealth,  amongst  those  who  had  a  more  than 
common  share  of  the  national  advantages.  Public  servants  were 
as  rapacious  in  1783,  as  when,  forty  years  before,  Smollett  carried 
his  qualification  for  a  surgeon's  mate  to  the  Navy  Office,  and  found 
that  he  had  not  the  slightest  chance  of  an  appointment,  "  without  a 
present  to  the  Secretary,  with  whom  some  of  the  Commissioners 
went  snacks."  f  It  was  the  system  of  corruption  which  gave  the 
charge  of  a  man-of-war  to  the  brutal  captain  Oakum,  who  declared 
with  terrible  oaths  that  there  should  be  no  sick  in  his  ship,  while 
he  had  the  command ;  and  which  chose  for  his  successor,  captain 
Whiffle,  who  came  on  board  in  a  coat  of  pink-coloured  silk,  lined 
with  white ;  his  hair  flowing  upon  his  shoulders  in  ringlets ;  his 
blue  meroquin  shoes  studded  with  diamond  buckles — Whiffle,  who 
languished  on  a  sofa,  his  head  supported  by  his  valet-de-chambre, 
who  from  time  to  time  applied  a  smelling-bottle  to  his  nose,  t 
Such  were  the  vermin  of  the  navy,  till  Rodney  taught  even  fribbles 
to  fight,  and  Collingwood  showed  bullies  how  gentle  manners  and 
tenderness  of  heart  could  be  combined  with  the  most  heroic  cour- 
age. The  Weazels  and  other  reptiles  of  the  army  were  gradu- 
ally exchanged  for  such  as  went  from  the  ball-room  at  Brussels  to 

*  "  Life  of  Wilberforce,"  vol.  i.  p.  10.  t  "  Roderick  Random,  "chap,  xviii. 

J  Ibid.,  chap,  xxxiv. 


416  HISTORY   OF    ENGLAND. 

fight  in  silk  stockings.  Young  men  of  fashion  drank  deep  and 
swore  hard ;  but  if  they  saw  service,  and  they  had  ample  oppor- 
tunities in  Chatham's  day,  they  might  have  some  sense  of  religion 
upon  the  principle  laid  down  by  corporal  Trim,  that  when  a  soldier 
"  is  fighting  for  his  king,  and  for  his  own  life  and  his  honour  too, 
he  has  the  most  reason  to  pray  to  God  of  any  one  in  the  whole 
world."  * 

The  Medical  Profession  was  so  distracted  by  jealousies  and 
rivalries  between  its  different  ranks  and  between  individuals  of  the 
same  rank,  that,  from  Garth  to  Foote,  the  satirists  have  always 
a  joke  ready  for  the  physician's  pomp  and  the  apothecary's  rapaci- 
ty. The  Law  was  necessarily  open  to  the  ridicule  which  properly 
attached  to  the  inflated  harangues  and  absurd  technicalities  of  the 
Courts — "  injunctions,  demurrers,  sham-pleas,  writs  of  error,  re- 
joinders, sur-rejoinders,  rebutters,  sur-rebutters,  replications,  ex- 
ceptions, essoigns,  and  imparlance."f  Quackery  was  keeping 
pace  with  the  progress  of  luxury.  Litigation  was  encouraged  by  the 
multiplication  of  statutes,  and  by  the  general  ignorance  even  of  the 
educated,  of  the  laws  and  constitution  of  their  own  country,  "  a  spe- 
cies of  knowledge  in  which  the  gentlemen  of  England  have  been 
more  remarkably  deficient  than  those  of  all  Europe  besides."  J 

The  members  of  the  Mercantile  Class  were,  in  London  especial- 
ly, accumulating  wealth,  and  losing  respectability.  The  citizen  of 
the  beginning  of  the  century  had  become  a  hybrid  of  fashion  before 
its  close.  After  George  III.  had  been  ten  years  on  the  throne  the 
traders  began  to  desert  the  city.  The  capacious  mansion  in  the 
narrow  street  was  given  up  for  the  inconvenient  house  in  the  new- 
built  square.  It  is  curious  to  mark  the  changes  in  the  fashionable 
estimate  of  locality.  The  citizen  of  ninety  years  ago  is  reproached 
for  "the  petty  vanity  of  residing  in  the  circle  of  fashion;  to  have 
descended  from  the  first  in  the  neighbourhood  of  the  Exchange  to 
be  the  last  in  Bloomsbury  square."  §  The  Essayist  asks  a  ques- 
tion, which  has  not  yet  been  more  satisfactorily  answered  than  he 
answers  it : — "  When  the  rich  and  respectable  leave  it,  who  are  to 
fill  its  magistracies  and  its  council  ?  The  lower  orders  of  trades- 
men, destitute  of  education  and  of  liberal  views,  and  thrust  forward 
into  office  by  nothing  but  their  own  pragmatical  activity."  The 
city  had  its  evil  reputation  for  gluttony  and  ignorance,  which  might 
be  some  excuse  for  the  men  of  refinement  and  education  deserting 
it.  Dr.  Campbell  is  taken  to  dine  with  a  citizen.  He  says,  "  I'll 
do  so  no  more,  for  there  is  no  entertainment  but  meat  and  drink 

»  "Tristram  Shandy."  t  Foot—"  The  Lame  Lover." 

t  Blackstone,  section  i.  §  Knox— Essay  8. 


THE   LOWER   ORDERS.  417 

with  that  class  of  people."*  When  Johnson  was  told  that  the 
society  of  Twickenham  chiefly  consisted  of  opulent  traders,  retired 
from  business,  he  declared  that  he  never  much  liked  that  class  of 
people  ;  "for,  sir,  they  have  lost  the  civility  of  tradesmen,  without 
acquiring  the  manners  of  gentlemen."  f  Johnson's  contempt  of 
trade  was  one  of  his  prejudices.  Boswell  asked,  "  What  is  the 
reason  we  are  angry  at  a  trader's  having  opulence  ?"  The  answer 
was,  "the  reason  is,  we  see  no  qualities  in  trade  that  should  entitle 
a  man  to  superiority."  Reasonable  men  have  ceased  to  be  angry 
at  a  trader's  having  opulence,  provided  his  wealth  has  proceeded 
from  the  true  qualities  of  a  tradesman,  honesty,  skill,  perseverance, 
decision  of  character — qualities  that  in  any  position  "  should  enti- 
tle a  man  to  superiority."  It  is  the  pretence  to  be  what  they  are 
not  that  has  always  made  the  traders  ridiculous.  Mr.  Zachary 
Fungus  learning  to  dance,  and  practising  fencing,  and  keeping  his 
riding-master  waiting  while  he  recites  the  speech  which  he  has 
learnt  from  Mr.  Gruel,  "  the  great  orationer  who  has  published  a 
book,"  by  which  Fungus  hopes  to  rise  in  the  state  ;  J — this  is  the 
citizen  to  be  despised,  whether  he  be  exhibited  by  Mr.  Foote,  or 
be  labelled  as  "  a  snob  "  by  a  greater  humorist. 

Fielding,  in  "  The  Covent  Garden  Journal,"  has  an  amusing 
paper  on  the  power  of  "  the  fourth  estate,"  by  which  he  means  "  the 
mob."  Their  insolence  to  passengers  on  the  river,  "whose  dress 
entitles  them  to  be  of  a  different  order  from  themselves ;  "  their 
rudeness  on  the  footpaths  of  the  streets ;  the  habits  of  carters  and 
draymen  "  to  exclude  the  other  estates  from  the  use  of  the  common 
highways ; "  their  abuse  of  women  of  fashion  in  the  Parks  of  a 
Sunday  evening — these  are  the  crimes  which  an  acute  observer 
lays  to  their  charge.  To  the  justice  of  peace  and  the  soldier, 
whom  they  hold  in  awe,  he  considers  that  it  is  "  entirely  owing  that 
they  have  not  long  since  rooted  all  the  other  orders  out  of  the 
commonwealth."  §  Foreigners  agree  in  this  species  of  censure. 
M.  Grosley  says  that  the  porters,  sailors,  chairmen,  and  day-labour- 
ers who  work  in  the  streets,  "  are  as  insolent  a  rabble  as  can  be  met 
with  in  countries  without  law  or  police."  Their  rudeness  to  for- 
eigners he  especially  dwells  upon  ;  and  he  gives  an  example.  His 
servant  had  followed  the  crowd  to  Tyburn,  to  see  three  men  hanged. 
Returning  home  through  Oxford-road,  he  was  attacked  by  several 
blackguards  ;  and  Jack  Ketch  joined  in  the  sport.  But  two  or 
three  grenadiers,  belonging  to  the  French  guards,  who  had  de- 

*  "  Diary,"  p.  75. 

t  Maxwell's  "  Collectanea,"  in  Boswell.        t  Foote — "  The  Commissary,"  act  ii. 

§  No  40,  June  20,  1752. 

VOL.  VI.— 27 


4l  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

serted,  rescued  their  countryman.  The  man  was  frigntened,  and 
would  not  go  out  for  a  fortnight ;  but  M.  Grosley  says  that  if  he, 
being  a  stout  fellow,  had  taken  his  coat  off  and  boxed  with  the 
weakest  among  them,  they  would  have  carried  him  home  in 
triumph.  Grosley  admits  that  the  obliging  readiness  of  the  citizens 
and  shopkeepers  sufficiently  conscles  the  foreigner  for  the  insolence 
of  the  mob.*  Nevertheless,  he  affirms  that  "even  amongst  those 
of  the  lowest  rank,  the  people  of  London,  though  haughty  and  un- 
governable, are  in  themselves  good  natured  and  humane."  Opposed 
to  the  complaint  of  Fielding  against  the  carters  and  draymen,  the 
Frenchman  maintains  that  their  good  nature  appears  in  their  great 
care  to  prevent  the  frays  almost  unavoidable,  amidst  the  eternal 
passing  of  carriages  in  narrow  streets ;  and  in  their  tender  treat- 
ment of  children,  and  persons  low  of  stature,  in  ceremonies  which 
attract  a  crowd. f  Moritz  saw  the  proceedings  at  an  election  in 
Covent  Garden :  "  What  is  called  hanging-day  arrived.  There 
was  also  a  parliamentary  election.  I  could  only  see  one  of  the  two 
sights."  There  was  no  contest,  and  sir  Cecil  Wray  was  elected, 
to  fill  one  vacant  seat.  "  In  the  area  before  the  hustings  immense 
multitudes  of  people  were  assembled,  of  whom  the  greatest  part 
seemed  to  be  of  the  lowest  order."  The  moment  that  the  candidate 
began  to  speak,  "  even  this  rude  rabble  became  all  as  quiet  as  the 
raging  sea  after  a  storm."  Another  gentleman  spoke  ;  and  a  gruff 
carter  who  stood  near  our  foreigner  exclaimed^  "  Upon  my  word 
that  man  speaks  well."  The  enthusiasm  of  the  Prussian  is 
awakened;  and  it  warms  his  heart  to  see  "  how  in  this  happy  country, 
the  lowest  and  meanest  member  of  society  thus  unequivocally  tes- 
tifies the  interest  which  he  takes  in  everything  of  a  public  nature, 
— how  high  and  low,  rich  and  poor,  concur  in  declaring  their  feel- 
ings and  their  convictions  that  a  carter,  a  common  tar,  or  a  scaven- 
ger, is  still  a  man  and  an  Englishman,  and  as  such  has  his  rights  and 
privileges  defined  and  known  as  exactly  and  as  well  as  his  king 
and  his  king's  ministers."  |  Moritz,  who  was  familiar  with  our 
literature,  had  probably  the  fine  lines  of  Goldsmith  in  his  mind : 

"  Fierce  in  their  native  hardiness  of  soul, 
True  to  imagined  right  above  coutroul, 
While  even  the  peasant  boasts  these  rights  to  scan, 
And  learns  to  venerate  himself  as  man." 

It  must  not  be  forgotten  when  we  speak  of  the  licentiousness  of 
the  lower  orders  in  the  period  of  which  we  are  writing,  that  they 
were  constantly  stimulated  by  demagogues  to  abuse  the  liberty  of 

*  "  Observations  on  England,"  vol.  i.  p.  84-  t  Ibid.,  p.  63. 

t  •'  Travels  through  England,  in  1782." 


THE   RABBLE. — MOBS.  419 

which  they  were  proud  ;  that  whatever  was  brutal  in  their  nature 
was  not  softened  by  any  care  for  their  education  ;  that  the  police 
of  London  was  utterly  inefficient ;  and  that  the  frequency  of  exe- 
cutions would  have  rendered  them  blood-thirsty,  if,  with  all  their 
curiosity  to  see  men  hanged  (which  low  taste  they  partook  in  com- 
mon with  George  Selwyn  and  others  of  rank),  they  had  not  had 
essentially  a  greater  respect  for  human  life  than  any  other  people 
in  the  world.  A  writer,  who  presents  us  many  vivid  but  rather 
vague  generalizations  on  the  manners  of  that  time,  says,  ''The 
rabble  of  London,  though  to  this  day  the  most  brutal  and  odious 
rabble  in  Europe,  were  never  sanguinary."*  This  is  somewhat 
hard  upon  the  rabble  of  London,  if  we  consider  that  they  have  not 
the  advantage  of  those  lessons  of  politeness  enjoyed  by  every  other 
rabble  in  Europe — that  they  are  not  tamed  by  a  soldiery  always 
ready  to  shoot  them  down  without  magistrate  or  riot  act.  "  The 
English  rabble,"  continues  this  historian,  "  are  chiefly  remarkable 
for  mischief  and  cowardice.  They  destroy  property,  but  they 
rarely  attempt  life."  One  who  had  a  very  considerable  experience 
in  the  political  power  of  mobs,  was  anxious  that  what  he  considered 
their  courage  should  be  kept  alive  by  the  humanizing  lessons  of 
the  gallows.  Romilly  describes  a  dinner  in  1 785,  at  which  he  was 
present  with  John  Wilkes  and  Mirabeau:  "The  conversation 
turned  upon  the  English  criminal  law,  its  severity,  and  the  fre- 
quency of  public  executions.  Wilkes  defended  the  system  with 
much  wit  and  good  humour,  but  with  very  bad  arguments.  He 
thought  that  the  happiest  results  followed  from  the  severities  of 
our  penal  law.  It  accustomed  men  to  a  contempt  of  death,  though 
it  never  held  out  to  them  any  cruel  spectacle  ;  and  he  thought  that 
much  of  the  courage  of  Englishmen,  and  of  their  humanity  too, 
might  be  traced  to  the  nature  of  our  capital  punishments,  and  to 
their  being  so  ofteri  exhibited  to  the  people."  f  When  the  system 
came  to  an  end,  under  which  ninety-seven  malefactors  were  exe- 
cuted in  London  in  one  year,  and  twenty  were  hanged  on  one 
morning,  did  the  "  cowardice  "  increase  ;  so  that  "  a  file  of  soldiers 
will,  at  any  time,  disperse  the  most  formidable  crowd ;  and  a  few 
resolute  individuals,  armed  with  bludgeons,  can  generally  beat  them 
off."  J  The  admirable  metropolitan  police  of  the  present  day  has 
prevented  any  frequent  opportunities  of  analyzing  the  composition 
of  the  qualities  of  the  London  rabble.  Mischievous  boys  are  gen- 
erally more  conspicuous  than  brutal  men.  The  chairmen  are  gone, 
and  so  are  the  street  porters.  That  large  class  who  stand  behind 

*  Massey— "  History  during  reign  of  George  III.,"  vol.  ii.  j%  85. 

t  "  Memoirs  of  Sir  Samuel  Romilly,"  vol.  i.  p.  61,  3rd  edit.  t  Massey. 


420  HISTORY   OF    ENGLAND. 

carriages  in  piush  breeches  and  silk  stockings,  are  no  longer  the 
most  turbulent  in  the  theatres  ;  no  longer  have  private  riots  of 
their  own,  of  a  character  quite  as  formidable  as  those  of  the  deni- 
zens of  St.  Giles's.  A  singular  state  of  manners  is  presented  in 
the  following  record  of  a  scene  which  took  place  on  the  nth  of 
May,  1764.  "A  great  disturbance  was  created  at  Ranelagh-house, 
by  the  coachmen,  footmen,  &c.,  belonging  to  such  of  the  nobility 
and  gentry  as  will  not  suffer  their  servants  to  take  vails.  They 
began  by  hissing  their  masters  ;  they  then  broke  all  the  lamps  and 
outside  windows  with  stones ;  and  afterwards,  putting  out  their 
flambeaux,  pelted  the  company  in  a  most  audacious  manner  with 
brickbats,  whereby  several  were  greatly  hurt,  so  as  to  render  the 
use  of  swords  necessary."  *  Can  we  have  better  evidence  of  the 
disorder  of  all  society,  in  which  the  valet  emulated  the  indecorum 
of  his  master,  and  the  drunken  mechanic  copied  the  drunken  lord. 
The  Police  of  London  in  the  last  ten  years  of  George  II.,  and 
through  the  remaining  years  of  the  century,  was  a  system  that 
combined  the  hateful  and  the  ridiculous  to  an  extent  that  requires 
some  strong  power  of  relying  upon  evidence  to  believe  in.  The 
character  of  the  watchman  may  be  found  in  every  novel.  A  sober 
traveller  sums  up  the  qualifications  of  these  protectors  of  life  and 
property :  "  London  has  neither  troops,  patrols,  nor  any  sort  of 
regular  watch  ;  and  it  is  guarded  during  the  night  only  by  old  men 
chosen  from  the  dregs  of  the  people,  who  have  no  other  arms  but  a 
lanthorn  and  a  pole  ;  who  patrole  the  streets,  crying  the  hour  every 
time  the  clock  strikes  ;  who  proclaim  good  or  bad  weather  in  the 
morning  ;  who  come  to  awake  those  who  have  any  journey  to  per- 
form ;  and  whom  it  is  customary  with  young  rakes  to  beat  and  use 
ill,  when  they  come  rioting  from  the  taverns  where  they  have  spent 
the  night."  f  A  curious  example  of  the  influence  of  routine  upon 
public  functionaries  is  given  by  Wraxall.  He  went  out  amidst 
the  mob  on  the  worst  night  of  the  riots  of  1780,  whilst  the  premises 
of  Mr.  Langdale,  the  distiller,  were  burning  on  Holborn  Hill,  and  a 
frantic  mob  was  raging  in  the  street.  "  While  we  stood  by  the  wall 
of  St.  Andrew's  churchyard,  a  watchman,  with  his  lanthorn  in  his 
hand,  passed  us,  calling  the  hour  as  if  in  a  time  of  profound  tran- 
quillity." J  The  police-officer  of  that  day  was  called  a  "thief- 
taker," — he  was  in  no  sense  of  the  word  a  detective  or  a  preventive 
functionary.  He  knew  the  thieves,  and  the  thieves  knew  him.  His 
business  was  to  "  let  the  matter  ripen  "  when  he  had  information 
of  a  house  to  be  broken  open  or  mail  to  be  robbed.  When  he  was 

*  "  Annual  Register,"  vol.  vii.  t  Grosley,  vol.  i.  p.  48. 

i  "  Historical  Memoirs,"  vol.  i.  p.  329. 


THE    PRISONS.  421 

sure  of  a  capital  conviction,  he  took  his  man,  and  obtained  forty 
pounds  "blood-money."  It  was  a  thriving  trade»  "I  remember," 
said  Townsend,  the  Bow  Street  runner,  "in  1783,  when  sergeant 
Adair  was  Recorder,  there  were  forty  hung  at  two  executions.," 

The  horrible  state  of  the  Prisons  in  1738  has  been  already 
shown  in  some  notice  of  a  Report  of  a  Parliamentary  Committee.* 
We  may  trace  in  the  writers  of  fiction  how  little  the  dominion  of 
cruelty,  neglect,  and  extortion  had  been  diminished  at  the  accession 
of  George  III.  Fielding's  Mr.  Booth  is  committed  by  an  ignorant 
justice  to  Bridewell,  upon  a  charge  of  assaulting  a  watchman,  when 
he  had  only  interfered  to  prevent  an  outrage  by  two  men  of  fortune, 
who  bribed  the  constable  to  let  them  escape.  When  he  goes  to 
prison  a  number  of  persons  gather  round  him  in  the  yard,  and  de- 
mand "  garnish."  The  keeper  explained  that  it  was  customary  for 
every  new  prisoner  to  treat  the  others  with  something  to  drink. 
The  young  man  had  no  money  ;  and  the  keeper  quietly  permitted 
the  scoundrels  to  strip  him  of  his  clothes.  All  persons  sent  to  Bride- 
well were  treated  alike,  so  far  as  the  prison  discipline  was  con- 
cerned. Three  street  robbers,  certain  to  be  hanged,  were  enjoying 
themselves  over  a  bottle  of  wine  and  a  pipe  ;  the  man  without  a 
shilling  in  his  pocket,  had  the  prison  allowance  of  a  penny  loaf  and 
a  jug  of  water.f  Fetons  and  debtors  were  in  some  cases  separ- 
ated ;  but  there  was  little  distinction  in  the  treatment  of  the  burg- 
lar and  the  bankrupt.  Those  who  could  pay  exorbitant  fees  had 
privileges  and  indulgences — a  full  meal  and  unlimited  liquor.  In 
1773,  John  Howard,  in  his  capacity  of  high  Sheriff  of  Bedfordshire? 
had  his  eyes  opened  to  the  disgraceful  condition  of  the  prisons  of 
England,  and  the  enormities  committed  in  them.  Before  1775  he 
had  personally  inspected  nearly  every  one  of  these  abodes  of  vice 
made  more  wicked  ;  of  innocence  corrupted ;  of  human  beings, 
whether  innocent  or  guilty,  subjected  to  filth,  starvation,  contagious 
disease,  and  the  capricious  temper  of  savage  and  mercenary  gaolers. 
In  1777  he  published  his  book  "  On  Prisons."  He  awakened  public 
attention  to  the  evil  ;  and  the  Legislature  adopted  some  measures 
for  its  remedy — measures,  however,  founded  upon  no  enlarged 
principles, — mere  palliatives,  that  fitted  a  state  of  society  in  which 
expediency  might  suggest  a  few  obvious  changes,  but  where  prin- 
ciple made  no  attempt  to  go  to  the  root  of  one  of  the  most  difficult 
of  social  questions, — the  mode  of  dealing  with  the  criminal  popula- 
tion. The  system  of  the  Hulks  was  commenced  in  1776.  In 
nineteen  years  1999  convicts  were  ordered  to  be  punished  with 
hard  labour  on  the  Thames,  and  in  Langston  and  Portsmouth  har 
*  A  nte,  vol.  v.  p.  436.  t  "  Amelia." 


422  HISTORY   OF    ENGLAND. 

Lours.  It  was  something  to  have  given  fewer  victims  to  the  de- 
vouring maw  of  the  gallows  ;  but  it  was  more  than  ten  years  before 
these  offerings  to  Moloch  had  been  diminished.  But  the  Hulks 
utterly  failed  in  producing  the  reformation  of  offenders.  "  Most 
of  them,  instead  of  profiting  by  the  punishment  they  have  suffered, 
forgetting  they  were  under  sentence  of  death,  and  undismayed  by 
the  dangers  they  have  escaped — immediately  rush  into  the  same 
course  of  depredation  and  warfare  upon  the  public."  *  The  sys- 
tem of  transporation  to  New  South  Wales  commenced  in  1787. 

The  efforts  of  individuals  to  compensate  for  the  neglect  of  the 
government,  by  associating  benevolent  persons  in  attempts  to 
remedy  social  evils,  were  at  this  period  very  remarkable.  The  re- 
form effected  by  Howard  was  the  seed  in  good  ground.  But  it 
was  not  always  that  energy  such  as  that  of  Howard  could  be  found 
in  companionship  with  his  practical  sense  ;  or,  at  any  rate,  that  the 
objects  aimed  at  by  philanthropy  should  b'e  so  little  liable  to  mis- 
direction, and  so  certain  in  their  results,  as  his  purification  of  the 
prison,  system.  Thomas  Coram,  the  master  of  a  merchant  vessel, 
had  seen  in  the  neighbourhood  of  Rotherhithe  infants  exposed  in 
the  streets — left  to  perish  by  their  unnatural  mothers.  He  laboured 
hard  to  establish  a  Foundling  Hospital  ;  and  in  1739  obtained  a 
charter  for  that  institution  which  now  possesses  enormous  funds 
from  subscriptions  and  from  estates,  but  which  had  originally  very 
inadequate  means  compared  with  the  number  of  those  who  rang  a 
bell  at  the  gate  of  the  hospital,  left  a  child  with  a  particular  mark 
upon  it,  and  waited  its  admission  or  rejection.  In  1756,  the  gov- 
ernors obtained  a  parliamentary  grant  of  io,ooo/.,  and  during  the 
subsequent  fifteen  years  had  received  more  than  half  a  million  of 
the  public  money,  to  distribute  in  a  manner  calculated  to  produce 
far  greater  evils  than  those  which  they  sought  to  remedy.  The 
wise  legislators  stipulated,  when  the  grant  was  first  made,  that  all 
children  above  the  age  of  two  months  should  be  received.  The  age 
was  afterwards  limited  to  six  months.  A  basket  was  hung  at  the 
gate,  in  which  the  deserted  child  was  deposited.  Purveyors  of 
Foundlings  started  up  in  the  country  districts,  who  carried  infants 
to  London  in  panniers  slung  across  a  horse.  Many  died  on  their 
journey.  In  four  years  from  1756,  children  to  the  number  of 
14,934  wera  taken  under  the  management  of  this  institution,  of 
which  only  4400  lived  to  be  apprenticed.  Parliament  then  inter- 
fered, and  declared  "  that  the  indiscriminate  admission  of  all  chil- 
dren under  a  certain  age  into  the  hospital  had  been  attended 
with  many  evil  consequences,  and  that  it  be  discontinued."  The 
*  Colquhoua — "  Police  of  the  Metropolis,"  p.  470,  ed.  1800. 


HANWAY. — HOSPITALS. 


423 


charity  had  offered  a  large  premium  for  vice,  and  had  been  perfectly 
successful  in  the  encouragement  of  what  we  now  properly  call "  the 
great  social  evil."  Another  philanthropist,  towards  the  close  of 
the  reign  of  George  II.,  established  two  societies,  which  were  in- 
corporated  in  the  subsequent  reign.  The  one  was  "  the  Magdalen 
Asylum,"— the  other  "  the  Marine  Society."  To  take  distressed 
boys  out  of  the  streets,  educate  them  for  the  seaman's  life,  and 
place  them  in  the  merchant  service  or  the  royal  Navy,  was  an  ob- 
ject of  no  doubtful  good.  Jonas  Hanway,  whose  exertions  mainly 
established  these  two  charities,  is  stated  to  have  been  "  the  first 
man  who  ventured  to  walk  the  streets  of  London  with  an  umbrella 
over  his  head." 

Amidst  a  good  deal  of  selfish  indulgence  in  their  own  pleasures, 
about  the  middle  of  the  eighteenth  century,  by  the  noble  and  the 
rich,  there  is  abundant  evidence  that  a  feeling  had  been  awakened 
of  consideration  for  the  miseries  of  the  lowly  and  the  indigent. 
Hospitals  for  the  reception  of  the  sick  and  the  maimed  were  freely 
supported  by  voluntary  contributions.  The  Westminster  Hospital 
was  the  first  of  this  character,  having  been  instituted  in  1719.  St. 
George's  Hospital  dates  from  1733;  the  London  Hospital  from 
1740,  in  which  year  the  Middlesex  Hospital  was  also  established  ; 
and  the  Small  Pox  Hospital  was  opened  in  1746.  But  no  benefit 
to  society  was  greater  than  that  produced  by  the  partial  extension 
of  education  to  the  humblest  classes  of  the  community.  The  old 
foundation-schools  had,  in  too  many  instances,  been  wholly  divert- 
ed from  their  original  purpose  of  general  instruction,  to  provide 
sinecures  for  clergymen,  who  pretended  to  instruct  the  few  pupils 
to  whom  they  could  not  refuse  admission.  Their  funds  were 
wasted  and  misappropriated  till,  in  our  own  day,  a  man  of  extra- 
ordinary vigour  tore  down  the  cobwebbed  screen  that  patronage  and 
venality  had  raised  up,  to  defraud  the  children  of  this  land  of  their  in- 
heritance. What  were  called  the  Free  Schools,  or  Charity  Schools, 
dispensed  reading  and  writing  to  select  parties  of  boys  and  girls, 
marked  out  for  the  ridicule  of  their  companions  by  a  grotesque 
and  antiquated  costume.  These  boys  were  fortunate  if  they  obtained 
a  sufficient  knowledge  of  arithmetic  to  serve  behind  a  counter 
without  a  Ready  Reckoner  Fielding  has  touched  upon  the  state 
of  popular  instruction  in  his  day,  according  to  the  experience  of 
Joseph  Andrews  :  "  Joey  told  Mr.  Adams  that  he  had*  very  early 
learnt  to  read  and  write,  by  the  goodness  of  his  father,  who,  though 
he  had  not  interest  enough  to  get  him  into  a  charity  school,  be- 
cause a  cousin  of  his  father's  landlord  did  not  vote  on  the  right 
side  for  a  churchwarden  in  a  borough  town,  yet  had  been  himself 


424  HISTORY   OF   ENGLAND. 

at  the  expense  of  sixpence  a  week  for  his  learning."  The  extension 
of  instruction  to  which  we  have  referred  was  the  work  of  Robert 
Raikes,  the  proprietor  of  the  "  Gloucester  Journal."  This  excel- 
lent man  was  struck  by  the  degraded  state  of  the  children  in  the 
suburbs  of  his  city.  On  a  Sunday  their  numbers  were  increased  ; 
and  their  filth  and  disorderly  conduct  more  revolting.  He  procured 
a  few  womem  to  teach  some  to  read  on  the  Sunday ;  he  persuaded 
them  to  go  to  church  with  clean  hands  and  face  and  combed  hair; 
he  gave  them  Testaments.  Their  self-respect  was  raised ;  from 
outcasts  they  became  capable  of  honest  industry.  The  good  ex- 
ample was  rapidly  followed ;  and  Sunday  Schools  were  established 
all  over  the  kingdom,  after  the  successful  experiment  of  1781. 

As  we  approach  the  period  we  have  assigned  as  the  limit  to 
this  general  view  of  Manners,  we  find  that  there  has  been,  in  some 
degree,  an  awakening  of  society  to  a  more  decorous,  and,  we  may 
therefore  presume,  to  a  more  virtuous  exhibition  of  character  and 
conduct.  Literature  has  been  very  materially  purified.  Scenes 
and  expressions  in  writers  of  fiction,  which  were  held  to  be  natural 
and  amusing  in  the  middle  of  the  century,  were  deemed  gross  and 
revolting  towards  its  close.  Whether  these  exceptionable  passages 
were  derived  from  the  tone  of  the  age — which  is  most  probable  ; 
or  were  the  oozings  out  of  the  impure  thoughts  of  the  writers, 
which  we  are  unwilling  to  believe — it  is  certain  that  they  have  con- 
demned Fielding,  Smollett,  and  Sterne  to  an  oblivion  from  which 
their  great  powers  would  otherwise  have  saved  them.  We  see, 
also,  that  the  miseries  of  poverty  and  the  degradation  of  ignorance 
had  stirred  up  some  feeling  of  what  was  required  for  the  mitigation 
of  evils  not  absolutely  associated  with  humble  station.  In  high 
life,  the  example  of  the  Court  was  working  a  gradual  reformation. 
But  there  were  influences  more  potent  in  operation  to  produce  a 
more  vital  change  then  Literature  or  Fashion. 

The  observant  Frenchman  to  whom  we  have  several  times 
referred,  M.  Grosley,  says,  of  "  the  sect  of  the  Methodists," — 
"this  establishment  has  borne  all  the  persecutions  that  it  could 
possibly  apprehend  in  a  country  as  much  disposed  to  persecution 
as  England  is  the  reverse."  *  The  light  literature  of  forty  years 
overflows  with  ridicule  of  Methodism.  The  preachers  are  pelted 
by  the  mob ;  the  converts  are  held  up  to  execration  as  fanatics  or 
hypocrites.  Yet  Methodism  held  the  ground  it  had  gained.  It 
had  gone  forth  to  utter  the  words  of  truth  to  men  little  above  the 
beasts  that  perish,  and  it  had  brought  them  to  regard  themselves 
as  akin  to  humanity.  The  time  would  come  when  its  earnestness 

*  "Observations  on  England,"  vol.  i.  p.  356. 


METHODISM. 


4-5 


would  awaken  the  Church  itself  from  its  somnolency,  and  the 
educated  classes  would  not  be  ashamed  to  be  religious.  There 
was  wild  enthusiasm  enough  in  some  of  the  followers  of  White- 
field  and  Wesley  ;  much  self-seeking ;  zeal  verging  upon  profane- 
ness  ;  moral  conduct  strangely  opposed  to  pious  profession.  But 
these  earnest  men  left  a  mark  upon  their  time  which  can  never  be 
effaced.  The  obscure  young  students  at  Oxford,  in  1736,  who 
were  first  called  "  Sacramentarians,"  then  "  Bible  Moths,"  and 
finally  "Methodists,"  to  whom  the  regular  pulpits  were  closed, 
and  who  then  went  forth  to  preach  in  the  fields — who  separated 
from  the  Church  more  in  form  than  in  reality — produced  a  moral 
revolution  in  England  which  probably  saved  us  from  the  fate  of 
nations  wholly  abandoned  to  their  own  devices. 

The  individuality  of  opinion  and  conduct  which  is  so  charac- 
teristic of  England — so  different  to  the  "  all  men  alike  "  of  France 
— led  the  two  founders  of  Methodism  into  different  paths.  The 
principle  of  individuality  originally  isolated  them  from  the  torpid 
religion  and  the  lax  morality  of  the  college  life.  It  sent  them  to 
preach  to  the  neglected  poor  wherever  vice  and  ignorance  most 
abounded,  without  much  regard  to  the  discipline  of  the  Church  of 
which  they  were  members.  But  the  characters  of  Whitefield  and 
Wesley  were  in  some  respects  very  different.  Whitefield  was 
satisfied  with  rousing  the  sinful  and  the  indifferent  by  his  own 
fervid  eloquence,  without  providing  for  the  systematic  continuance 
of  his  personal  efforts.  His  preaching  created  a  host  of  followers, 
who,  branching  off  in  their  several  localities,  were  content  to  be 
led  by  men  without  education.  Starting  up  as  teachers  from  the 
lowest  ranks,  such  men,  although  too  vain  and  presumptuous  to 
see  their  own  incompetence,  were  nevertheless  better  judges,  in 
many  cases,  than  the  educated  clergy,  of  the  mode  in  which  rude 
natures  could  be  most  effectually  awakened  to  penitence  for  sin. 
Wesley,  on  the  other  hand,  saw  the  danger  of  this  indiscriminate 
admission  of  every  fanatic  to  be  a  gospel-preacher ;  and  he  in- 
stituted and  perfected  by  his  incessant  labours  that  remarkable 
organization  known  as  Wesleyism.  The  exertions  of  these  two 
men,  each  pursuing  tracks  not  essentially  diverging  however  sepa- 
rate, had  produced  effects  in  half  a  century  of  which  their  op- 
ponents could  have  formed  no  adequate  estimate.  The  clergy, 
who  preached  and  wrote  against  the  excesses  of  coarse  enthusiasts 
— the  wits,  who  exhibited  hypocrisy  and  credulity  upon  the  stage, 
in  the  endeavour  to  laugh  down  the  Methodists — could  not  wholly 
shut  their  eyes  to  the  conviction  that  there  was  a  real  power  at 
work  which  touched  other  natures  than  such  as  those  of  the  Maw- 


426  HISTORY   OF   ENGLAND. 

worms  and  Mrs.  Coles.  The  power  could  not  be  despised  which 
made  floods  of  tears  roll  down  the  sooty  cheeks  of  the  colliers  of 
Kingswood;  and  which,  penetrating  to  Scotland,  had  called  the 
lowest  of  the  population  of  Glasgow  to  go  forth  to  Cambuslang, 
and  there,  "  at  the  foot  of  the  brae  near  the  kirk,"  hear  the  Word 
preached  in  the  open  fields,  and  surrender  themselves  to  an  irre- 
sistible influence,  such  as  was  wielded  by  the  Puritans  of  old.  To 
assist  in  "the  extraordinary  work  of  Cambuslang"  Whitefield 
came,  and  saw  thirty  thousand  persons  assembled  to  receive  the 
Sacrament.  There  was  beheld,  upon  the  largest  scale,  scenes 
that  were  familiar  in  England  amongst  the  earliest  converts 
to  Methodism — shrieks,  violent  agitations  of  body,  shaking  and 
trembling,  fainting  and  convulsions.  These  manifestations  were, 
by  one  party  in  the  Church  of  Scotland,  ascribed  to  the  delusions 
of  Satan  ;  by  another  party  to  the  influence  of  the  Holy  Spirit ;  and 
by  a  third  party,  to  natural  causes,  produced  by  sermons  addressed 
"  not  to  the  understanding  of  the  hearers,  but  to  their  imaginations 
and  passions."  *  These  early  effects  of  the  fervid  preaching  of 
the  new  sect  passed  away.  But  the  gradual  influence  of  a  more 
earnest  sense  of  religion  was  diffused  through  the  whole  com- 
munity of  Britain.  The  members  of  the  Churches  of  England  and 
Scotland  ceased  to  ridicule  even  such  extravagances  as  were  seen 
at  "  the  Cambuslang  conversions."  The  separation  between  Es- 
tablishment and  Dissent  became  less  marked  by  bitter  hostility. 
The  principle  of  individuality  was  not  less  strong;  but  it  gradually 
put  off  the  form  of  intolerance,  for  that  honest  rivalry  in  the 
attempt  to  do  good  which  has,  more  than  any  other  cause,  enabled 
us  to  look  back  upon  the  morals  and  manners  of  the  last  century 
as  a  condition  of  society  not  likely  to  return. 

*  Sinclair — "  Statistical  Account  of  Scotland,"  vol.  T. 


y 


RETROSPECT   OF    INDIAN   AFFAIRS.  427 


CHAPTER  XXIII. 

Retrospect  of  Indian  affairs.— Hastings  Governor-General.— Rohilla  war.— New  Council 
at  Calcutta. — Hastings  and  the  Council  opposed  to  each  other.— Nuncomar. — His  ex- 
ecution.—Dissentionsat  Madras.— Mahratta  war.— Capture  of  Gwalior.— Hyder  AH.— 
The  Carnatic  ravaged.— Hyder  defeated  by  Coote.— Death  of  Hyder.— Succeeded  by 
his  son  Tippoo  Saib.— Benares.— Oude.— The  Begums.— Committee  of  the  Houses  of 
Parliament  on  Indian  Affairs. 

IN  June  1783,  when  the  news  arrived  at  Calcutta  that  the  pre- 
liminaries of  peace  had  been  signed  between  Great  Britain  and 
France,  the  misfortunes  that  had  at  one  time  foreboded  the  down- 
fall of  the  British  power  in  India  had  been  mainly  overcome.  The 
war  with  Tippoo  Saib  and  his  French  auxiliaries  was  still  main- 
tained ;  although  it  was  evident  that  the  energy  of  Warren  Has- 
tings had  succeeded  in  averting  the  danger  in  the  East,  which, 
not  long  before,  appeared  to  threaten  as  calamitous  results  as  those 
which  had  attended  our  arms  in  the  West.  Before  we  resume  our 
narrative  of  civil  affairs  at  home,  it  will  be  proper  that  we  should 
take  up  the  history  of  events  in  India,  from  the  period  of  the  ap- 
pointment of  Hasting  as  the  first  Governor-General.* 

Previous  to  the  nomination  of  Hastings  to  this  high  office  by 
the  Act  of  1773,  he  had,  in  his  capacity  of  Governor  of  Bengal, 
struck  out  a  line  of  policy,  in  which  we  alternately  admire  his  saga- 
city and  blush,  as  his  countrymen,  for  his  unscrupulousness.  In 
1772,  he  was  labouring,  as  an  honest  statesman,  to  repair  as  far  as 
possible  the  miseries  produced  by  the  famine  of  1770,  and  by  judi- 
cious fiscal  arrangements  to  overcome  the  consequent  embarrass- 
ments in  the  collection  of  the  revenue  of  the  depopulated  districts. 
He  freed  the  country  from  bands  of  robbers,  by  appointing  local 
officers  to  maintain  authority.  He  secured  the  administration  of 
justice,  by  instituting  local  courts  of  law.  If  he  could  have  met,  by 
just  means,  the  unceasing  demands  of  the  Directors  of  the  East 
India  Company  for  lacs  of  rupees,  he  would  not  have  resorted  to 
those  modes  of  gratifying  the  cupidity  of  his  masters  for  which  many 
apologies  have  been  offered,  but  for  which  no  adequate  defence 
has  ever  been  established.  He  was  a  faithful  sevant  to  the  Com- 
pany, not  waiting  fordirect  orders  to  commit  injustice,  but  securing 
*  Ante,  vol.  vi.  p.  114. 


428  HISTORY   OF    ENGLAND. 

his  own  tenure  of  power  by  violating  the  pecuniary  engagements 
which  Clive  had  made,  and  by  driving  excellent  bargains,  of  which 
the  only  defect  was  that  they  compromised  the  English  honour. 
When  Clive  put  an  end  to  the  war  amongst  the  native  princes, 
giving  the  greater  part  of  Oude  to  the  Vizier  Sujah  Dowlah,  he 
reserved  the  districts  of  Corah  and  Allahabad  for  the  Mogul,  Shah 
Alum,  and  agreed  to  pay  the  fallen  potentate  twenty-six  lacs  of 
rupees  annually.  The  successor  of  the  great  Mussulman  con- 
querors of  India  was  happy  to  have  a  certain  revenue  for  his  own 
luxurious  gratifications,  and  he  willingly  executed  a  solemn  deed, 
giving  the  English  Company  the  sole  administration  of  the  prov- 
inces of  Bengal,  Orissa,  and  Bahar.  Hastings,  in  1773,  had  a 
plausible  excuse  for  setting  aside  those  arrangements  with  Shah 
Alum  which  were  costly  to  the  Company,  or  the  violation  of  which 
would  produce  immediate  advantages.  The  Mogul  had  become 
dependent  upon  the  Mahrattas,  and  had  been  compelled  to  sign  an 
edict  to  transfer  to  them  Corah  and  Allahabad.  Hastings  prompt- 
ly occupied  those  districts  with  English  troops  ;  and  resolved  to 
pay  no  more  tribute  to  the  shadow  of  the  sovereignty  of  Hindustan. 
Shah  Alum  lost  his  annual  lacs  of  rupees,  which  amounted  to  nearly 
three  hundred  thousand  pounds  ;  and  the  districts  which  were  taken 
from  him  were  sold  to  Sujah  Dowlah,  the  Vizier  of  Oude,  for  half  a 
million  sterling.  To  manage  these  transactions  Hastings  paid  a  visit 
to  the  Vizier  in  his  city  of  Benares  ;  and  there  the  two  allies  con- 
cluded another  bargain,  which  brought  more  gold  into  the  treasury 
of  Leadenhall-street.  It  was  agreed  that  an  English  army  should 
be  hired  by  Sujah  Dowlah  to  effect  the  subjugation  of  the  Rohillas 
— a  race  of  Afghans,  who  were  amongst  the  bravest  and  the  most 
civilised  of  the  various  populations  of  Hindustan.  With  troops 
under  the  command  of  colonel  Champion,  the  Rohilla  country  was 
invaded  by  the  English  in  April,  1774,  in  concert  with  Sujah  Dow- 
lah and  his  soldiery.  The  English  gained  a  victory.  The  forces  of 
Oude  looked  on ;  and  then  applied  themselves  to  devastate  the 
fertile  plains  of  Rohilcund,  and  to  extirpate,  as  far  as  possible,  the 
peaceful  and  industrious  inhabitants.  It  was  one  of  the  charges 
of  "  high  crimes  and  misdemeanours  "  against  Warren  Hastings, 
that  he  entered  into  a  private  engagement  with  the  Nabob  of  Oude, 
"  to  furnish  him,  for  a  stipulated  sum  of  money  to  be  paid  to 
the  East  India  Company,  with  a  body  of  troops  for  the  de- 
clared purpose  of  thoroughly  extirpating  the  nation  of  the  Rohillas 
• — a  nation  from  whom  the  Company  had  never  received,  or  pre- 
tended tt>  receive  or  apprehend,  any  injury  whatever." 

The  Rohilla  war  was  ended.     The  work  of  spoliation  and  mas- 


NEW   COUNCIL  AT   CALCUTTA.  429 

sacre  was  going  on  under  the  declaration  of  the  Governor-general 
that  "  he  had  no  authority  to  control  the  conduct  of  the  Vizier  in 
the  treatment  of  his  subjects."  The  country,  once  a  garden,  with- 
out a  spot  of  uncultivated  ground,  was  reduced,  by  the  brutal  mode 
of  carrying  on  the  war,  and  by  the  subsequent  misgovernment,  to 
a  state  of  utter  decay  and  depopulation.  At  this  period,  October, 
1774,  three  new  members  of  the  Council,  and  the  judges  of  the 
Supreme  Court,  appointed  under  the  Regulating  Act  of  1773,  ar- 
rived at  Calcutta.  The  principal  objects  of  that  Act  were  the 
reformation  of  the  Court  of  Proprietors  of  the  East  India  Com- 
pany, and  such  a  re-modelling  of  the  Court  of  Directors  as  should 
secure  an  enforcement  of  their  authority  upon  their  servants  abroad ; 
the  establishment  of  a  Court  of  Justice  capable  of  protecting  the 
natives  from  the  oppressions  of  British  subjects  ;  the  formation  of 
a  General  Council  having  authority  over  all  the  British  settlements 
and  who  would  furnish  the  ministers  of  the  Crown  with  constant 
information  concerning  the  whole  of  the  Company's  correspondence 
with  India.  The  provisions  of  this  Act  were  directed  to  the  ac- 
complishment of  large  and  benevolent  reforms ;  but  they  were 
found  wholly  inadequate  for  the  protection  of  the  natives,  for  the 
improvement  of  the  country,  or  for  the  construction  of  a  firm  and 
united  government.  The  three  new  members  of  the  council, 
general  Clavering,  colonel  Monson,  and  Mr.  Francis,  appear  to 
have  entered  upon  their  duties  with  a  concerted  determination  to 
oppose  the  measures  of  Hastings  and  of  the  other  old  servant  of 
the  Company,  Mr.  Barwell.  The  new  Chief  Justice  of  the  Supreme 
Court,  sir  Elijah  Impey,  was  a  personal  friend  of  the  Governor- 
General.  Hastings  naturally  looking  with  great  disfavour  upon 
those  who  were  come  apparently  with  the  determination  to  wrest 
all  power  from  his  hands,  by  constituting  a  majority  of  the  Council 
where  he  had  only  a  casting  vote.  Without  a  day's  delay  they 
testified  their  abhorrence  of  the  Rohilla  war,  by  recalling  the  Eng- 
lish troops.  Sujah  Dowlah  having  died,  and  his  son  having  suc- 
ceeded him  as  Vizier,  they  maintained  that  the  treaties  with  Oude 
were  at  an  end  upon  the  father's  death.  They  did  some  rash 
things  which  might  be  intended  to  remedy  past  evils,  but  which 
had  the  inevitable  tendency  of  lowering  the  respect  of  the  natives 
for  that  able  administrator  who  had  impressed  them  with  a  rever- 
ential fear.  The  natives  saw,  or  believed  they  saw,  that  the  power 
of  Hastings  was  gone.  Charges  of  corruption  were  made  against 
him  by  his  enemies,  whether  natives  or  Englishmen.  An  old  enemy 
of  Hastings  was  a  Hindoo  Brahmin,  the  Maharajah  Nuncomar. 
He  had  been  disappointed  in  his  aspirations  for  the  great  and 


430  HISTORY   OF    ENGLAND. 

lucrative  office  of  chief  minister  of  the  province  of  Bengal ;  for 
Hastings  had  abolished  the  office,  and  had  transferred  its  powers 
to  the  servants  of  the  Company.  The  crafty  Hindoo  bided  his 
time  for  revenge.  He  soon  discovered  who  would  be  his  natural 
ally  against  the  Governor-General.  He  put  into  the  hands  of 
Francis  a  series  of  charges  against  Hastings,  in  which  he  was  ac- 
cused of  setting  offices  to  sale,  and  of  receiving  bribes  to  permit 
the  escape  of  offenders.  Francis  brought  the  papers  before  the 
Council.  Hastings  contended  that  they  had  no  right  to  inquire 
into  charges  against  the  Governor,  especially  into  charges  made  by 
one  so  notoriously  perjured  and  fraudulent  as  Nuncomar.  Has- 
ings  and  Barwell  quitted  the  council-chamber ;  and  the  three  re- 
maining members  called  in  Nuncomar,  and  allowed  him  to  tell  his 
story  with  new  embellishments.  Hastings  instituted  proceedings 
against  the  old  Hindoo,  and  against  others,  upon  a  charge  of  con- 
spiracy. But  the  fate  of  Nuncomar  was  decided  upon  a  very 
different  accusation.  He  was  imprisoned  at  the  suit  of  a  native 
merchant,  charged  with  having  forged  a  bond  five  years  before 
this  period ;  for  which  alleged  offence  he  had  been  brought  to  trial 
in  the  mayor's  court  at  Calcutta,  and  had  been  dismissed  on  the 
interposition  of  Hastings.  The  Supreme  Court,  that  had  now 
entered  upon  its  functions,  with  sir  Elijah  Impey  as  its  head,  had 
to  take  cognizance  of  such  cases  of  lapsed  justice.  The  apologists 
of  the  Governor-General  and  the  Chief  Justice  maintain  that  it  was 
in  the  ordinary  course  of  events  that  Nuncomar  should  have  been 
tried,  and  only  a  strict  measure  of  justice  that  Nuncomar  should 
have  been  hanged,  at  the  precise  period  when  he  was  truly  danger- 
ous to  the  power  and  influence  of  Hastings.  Forgery,  under  the 
Common  Law  of  England,  was  punished  as  a  misdemeanour  ;  and 
under  the  statute  of  Elizabeth  was  not  treated  as  a  captial  offence. 
The  law  was  made  more  severe  as  the  commerce  of  the  country 
became  more  extensive.  But  in  Hindustan  the  crime,  regarded 
as  very  venial,  had  never  been  dealt  with  capitally.  Nuncomar 
was  tried  upon  the  severer  English  statute,  although  one  of  ti  .e 
judges  associated  with  Impey  pressed  for  his  indictment  under  the 
earlier  and  milder  enactment.  He  was  tried  by  a  jury  of  English- 
men, and  was  found  guilty.  He  was  sentenced  to  be  hanged ;  and 
the  power  of  reprieve  which  the  Supreme  Court  possessed  was  not 
exercised.  The  Council  had  no  power  to  interfere,  although  the 
majority  remonstrated  in  the  strongest  terms  against  the  entire  pro- 
ceedings. The  execution  of  the  old  man,  to  whom  the  agents  of  the 
Company  had  once  sued  for  favour  and  protection,  to  whom  his  coun- 
trymen looked  up  with  awe  as  a  Brahmin  who  was  the  very  head 


NUNCOMAR    EXECUTED.  431 

of  Brahmins, — was  inexorably  resolved  upon.  He  was  carried  in 
his  palanquin  to  the  common  gallows,  and  he  died  with  the  most 
perfect  composure.  The  punishment  of  Nuncomar  put  an  end  to 
all  troubles  and  accusations  against  Hastings  by  native  informers. 
The  event,  we  are  assured,  was  a  mere  coincidence  with  the  at- 
tempts to  shake  the  ascendancy  of  the  Governor-General ;  and  that 
his  friend  and  schoolfellow,  the  Chief  Justice,  was  a  pure  adminis- 
trator of  the  law  without  respect  of  person. 

The  public  quarrels,  and  the  private  immoralities,  of  Hastings 
and  Francis  occupy,  for  several  years,  the  general  narratives  of 
Indian  affairs.  The  adulterous  intercourse  of  Francis  with  the 
wife  of  a  Calcutta  barrister,  and  the  excessive  fine  imposed  upon 
him  by  sir  Elijah  Impey;  the  very  questionable  relations  of  Hast- 
ings with  Mrs.  Imhoff,  who  afterwards  became  his  wife,  and  whose 
reception  at  her  Court  by  the  rigid  queen  Charlotte  was  attributed 
by  satirists  to  the  influence  of  some  of  the  plundered  wealth  of 
India — these  are  matters  which,  however  entertaining  they  may  be, 
are  now  of  little  historical  importance.  The  Council  of  Calcutta, 
and  its  Supreme  Court  of  Justice,  were  as  discordant  an  adminis- 
trative body  as  ever  precipitated  an  empire  into  ruin.  But  Hast- 
ings had  the  sagacity,  amidst  all  the  rivalries  which  would  have 
pulled  down  a  man  of  less  energetic  will,  to  maintain  his  own  power, 
and  at  the  same  time  to  look  steadily  at  the  aggrandizement  of  the 
British  crown.  Circumstances  at  home  were  favourable  to  him, 
although  lord  North,  strongly  disapproving  the  Rohilla  war,  was 
bent  upon  his  recall.  But  the  Governor-General  could  not  be  re- 
moved during  the  first  five  years  of  his  administration,  except  by 
an  address  to  the  Crown  by  the  Court  of  the  East  India  Proprie- 
tors. The  most  strenuous  exertions  were  made  by  the  supporters 
of  the  ministry  to  obtain  a  vote  against  Hastings  ;  but  the  proposi- 
tion for  the  recall  was  finally  negatived.  The  Governor-General 
had  once  authorized  his  friend  colonel  Maclean  to  tender  his  resig- 
nation, if  his  conduct  should  not  be  approved  ;  and  though  he  had 
retracted  that  authority,  Maclean  in  1776  did  tender  the  resigna- 
tion. About  that  time  Hastings  had  acquired  a  temporary  supre- 
macy by  the  death  of  Monson.  His  casting  vote  enabled  him  to 
defeat  the  proposals  of  Clavering  and  Francis,  and  to  carry  his 
own  views  into  effect.  In  June,  1777,  a  packet-ship  arrived  with  the 
announcement  that  the  Governor-General  had  resigned.  Hastings 
denied  that  he  had  authorized  any  such  act.  Clavering  and  Francis 
claimed  immediate  authority.  Hastings  and  Barwell  maintained 
that  the  right  of  the  Governor  to  obedience  should  be  upheld  until 
further  information  should  arrive.  An  appeal  to  military  force 


432  HISTORY   OF    ENGLAND, 

would  have  unquestionably  determined  the  victory  for  Governor 
Hastings,  and  not  for  King  Francis,  as  the  presumptuous  ex-clerk 
of  the  Foreign  Office  was  called.  The  Supreme  Court  prevented 
such  a  conflict,  by  deciding  that  the  resignation  of  Hastings  was 
invalid,  and  that  Clavering  had  illegally  assumed  the  power  of  Gov- 
ernor-General. Hastings  then  contended  that  Clavering  had  for- 
feited his  seat  in  the  Council,  by  his  attempt  at  usurpation;  but 
the  Judges  of  the  Supreme  Court  decided  that  the  Governor-gen- 
eral had  no  power  to  remove  any  member  of  the  Board.  In  two 
months  after  this  contest  Clavering  died.  A  new  member  of  the 
Council,  Mr  Wheler,  arrived  to  fill  up  the  vacancy  caused  by  the 
death  of  colonel  Monson ;  and  now  Hastings  had  a  majority  to 
support  him.  The  same  course  of  unworthy  and  dangerous  rival- 
ries prevailed  in  the  subordinate  Council  of  Madras,  between  lord 
Pigot  and  the  members  of  his  Board.  He  maintained  that  he  was 
not  bound  by  a  majority  against  him ;  and  upon  their  refusal  to 
yield,  ordered  them  to  be  suspended  from  their  functions.  They 
took  a  stronger  step,  and  put  the  Governor  under  military  arrest ; 
for  which  violent  act  they  were  recalled  home  by  a  vote  of  the 
House  of  Commons ;  were  tried  in  the  Court  of  King's  Bench ; 
and  were  sentenced  to  pay  a  moderate  fine,  which  lenient  sentence 
they  probably  owed  to  a  speech  of  Erskine,  in  mitigation  of  pun- 
ishment. Lord  Pigot  was  also  recalled,  but  he  had  died  during 
his  period  of  imprisonment.  When  the  five  years  had  expired  dur- 
ing which  Hastings  could  not  be  removed  by  the  government 
without  the  concurrence  of  the  East  India  Company,  he  was  re- 
appointed.  Lord  North,  in  1 786,  in  a  debate  on  the  Rohilla  war, 
the  charge  against  Hastings  being  then  under  discussion,  strongly 
expressed  his  disapprobation  of  the  conduct  of  the  Governor-Gen- 
eral; but  said  that  in  1778,  when  the  French  war  commenced,  he 
did  not  think  that  a  fit  time  to  make  an  alteration  in  the  constitu- 
tion of  our  government  in  India,  and  considering  Mr.  Hastings  as 
a  man  of  abilities  he  continued  him  in  his  government.  * 

In  the  spring  of  1778  the  French  government  had  openly  made 
a  common  cause  with  the  North  American  colonies,  and  war  be- 
tween England  and  France  was  inevitable.  In  the  previous  year 
a  French  agent  had  been  negotiating  with  the  Peshwa  of  the 
Mahrattas,  at  his  seat  of  vice-royalty  at  Poonah,  and  an  alliance 
dangerous  to  the  British  interests  was  likely  to  be  formed.  Has- 
tings was  for  immediate  war  ;  and  although  two  of  the  Council 
were  opposed  to  him,  an  army  was  sent  to  the  Peshwa's  country, 
with  instructions  to  forward  the  claims  of  Ragoba,  a  pretender  to 

*  "  Parliamentary  History,"  vol.  xxvi.  p.  46. 


MAHRATTA    WAR. 


433 


the  dignity  of  Peshwa.  It  was  one  of  the  charges  against  Has- 
tings, that  on  the  22nd  of  June,  1778,  he  made  the  following  declara- 
tion in  council  :  "  If  it  be  really  true  that  the  British  arms  and 
influence  have  suffered  so  severe  a  check  in  the  Western  world,  it 
is  more  incumbent  on  those  who  are  charged  with  the  interests  of 
Great  Britain  in  the  East,  to  exert  themselves  for  the  retrieval 
of  the  national  loss."  Hastings  alluded  to  the  surrender  of  Bur- 
goyne  at  Saratoga.  In  a  few  weeks  arrived  the  intelligence  cf 
hostilities  with  France.  The  French  settlement  of  Chandernagore 
was  immediately  captured  ;  Pondicherry  was  invested,  and  was 
surrendered  after  some  resistance  ;  and  the  Mahratta  expedition 
was  persevered  in.  Its  results  were  very  unfortunate.  The  small 
army  under  colonel  Egerton  that  had  approached  Poonah  was  sur- 
rounded by  bodies  of  hostile  cavalry  ;  and  the  only  chance  of  safety 
was  a  convention,  by  which  it  was  agreed  that  the  Mahrattas  should 
recover  what  the  British  had  gained  from  them  since  1756.  Has- 
tings persevered  ;  and  other  expeditions  were  more  successful. 
General  Goddard  took  the  fort  of  Ahmedabad  by  storm,  and  the 
city  of  Bassein  by  siege.  Captain  Popham  reduced  the  city  of 
Lahar  ;  and  took  by  escalade  the  hill  fortress  of  Gwalior,  deemed 
impregnable.  The  government  at  home,  on  the  first  outbreak  of 
the  war  with  France,  had  sent  sir  Eyre  Coote  to  be  the  commander 
of  the  forces  in  India,  with  a  seat  in  the  Council.  There  had  been 
a  partial  reconciliation  in  that  body  between  the  discordant  par- 
ties of  Hastings  and  Francis.  But  the  animosities  were  onlv 
smothered.  A  duel  was  fought  between  the  two  rivals,  in  which 
Francis  was  shot ;  and  upon  his  recovery  he  resigned  his  office,  and 
returned  to  England.  There  were  other  fierce  contests  between  the 
wielders  of  the  political  and  the  judicial  power.  Hastings  and  Impey 
were  now  bitter  opponents.  These  feuds  have  ceased  to  command 
the  interest  which  was  once  attached  to  them.  Events  of  more 
real  importance  were  now  to  call  forth  all  the  resources  of  the  bold- 
ness and  foresight  of  the  Governor-General.  The  abilities  of  Has- 
tings were  exhibited  in  connection  with  a  policy  which  did  not  shrink 
from  employing  means  to  ensure  success  which  no  amount  of  suc- 
cess can  justify.  However  we  may  admire  in  him  the  great  qualities 
which  saved  the  British  authority  in  the  East  from  a  danger  as  for- 
midable as  that  which  overthrew  our  power  in  the  West,  we  cannot 
lament  that  his  triumphs  did  not  prevent  him  being  accused  as  an 
offender  against  the  rights  of  humanity,  and  that  years  of  bitter 
anxiety  and  loss  of  fortune  were  the  penalties  he  paid  for  his  oppres- 
sions. 

Hyder  Ali,  the  sovereign  of  the  great  kingdom  of  the  Mysore, 
'  VOL.  VI.— 28. 


434  HISTORY  OF   ENGLAND. 

had  been  at  peace  with  the  British  since  he  concluded  a  treaty  with 
the  Council  of  Madras  in  1769.  This  extraordinary  ruler  was  now 
far  advanced  in  years,  but  his  energy  was  undiminished.  It  was 
one  of  the  Articles  of  Charge  against  Hastings  that  his  intrigues 
against  the  Peshwa  of  the  Mahrattas  had  produced,  amongst  the 
chief  princes  and  states  of  India,  a  general  distrust  and  suspicion 
of  the  ambitious  designs  and  treacherous  principles  of  the  British 
government.  It  was  alleged  that  the  two  principal  Hindoo  powers 
— the  Peshwa,  and  the  Rajah  of  Berar — and  the  two  principal 
Mohammedan  powers — Hyder  Ali  and  the  Nizam  of  the  Deccan — 
renouncing  all  former  enmities  against  each  other,  united  in  a  com- 
mon confederacy  against  the  English.  In  1780  Hyder  Ali  assem- 
bled an  army  computed  to  consist  of  ninety  thousand  men.  These 
forces  had  been  partly  disciplined  by  Frence  officers.  He  had  a 
more  personal  quarrel  to  avenge  than  his  dread  of  the  extension 
of  the  English  power.  The  Council  of  Madras,  under  Sir  Thomas 
Rumbold,  had  given  especial  offence  to  Hyder  Ali.  His  rival  in  the 
Carnatic,  the  nabob  of  Arcot,  was  surrounded  by  English,  who 
were  his  creditors,  and  who  are  accused  of  having  carried  on  a 
continued  plot  in  the  divan,  for  the  destruction  of  Hyder  Ali.* 
The  revenge  of  the  great  chief  of  Mysore  has  been  described  in 
language  which  makes  the  soberer  colouring  of  history  look  pale  and 
ineffective.  ''  Having  terminated  his  disputes  with  every  enemy, 
and  with  every  rival,  who  buried  their  mutual  animosities  in  their 
common  detestation  against  the  creditors  of  the  nabob  of  Arcot,  he 
drew  from  every  quarter  whatever  a  savage  ferocity  could  add  to  his 
new  rudiments  in  the  arts  of  destruction  ;  and  compounding  all  the 
materials  of  fury,  havoc,  and  desolation,  into  one  black  cloud,  he 
hung  for  a  while  on  the  declivities  of  the  mountains.  Whilst  the 
authors  of  all  these  evils  were  idly  and  stupidly  gazing  on  this 
menacing  meteor,  which  blackened  all  their  horizon,  it  suddenly 
burst,  and  poured  down  the  whole  of  its  contents  on  the  plains  of  the 
Carnatic.  Then  ensued  a  scene  of  woe,  the  like  of  which  no  eye 
had  seen,  no  heart  conceived,  and  which  no  tongue  can  adequately 
tell.  All  the  horrors  of  war  before  known  or  heard  of  were  mercy  to 
that  new  havoc.  A  storm  of  universal  fire  blasted  every  field,  con- 
sumed every  house,  destroyed  every  temple.  The  miserable  inhabit- 
ants flying  from  their  flaming  villages,  in  part  were  slaughtered; 
others,  without  regard  to  sex,  to  age,  to  the  respect  of  rank,  or 
sacredness  of  function — fathers  torn  from  children,  husbands  from 
wives — enveloped  in  a  whirlwind  of  cavalry,  and  amidst  the  goading 
spears  of  drivers,  and  the  trampling  of  pursuing  horses,  were  swept 

*  Burke—"  Speech  on  the  Nabob  of  Arcot's  debts." 


HYDER   DEFEATED    BY   COOTE. 


435 


into  captivity,  in  an  unknown  and  hostile  land.  Those  who  were  able 
to  evade  this  tempest  fled  to  the  walled  cities.  But  escaping  from 
fire,  sword,  and  exile,  they  fell  into  the  jaws  of  famine."  * 

The  terrified  inhabitants  of  Madras  could  trace  the  progress  of 
the  ruthless  invader  as  columns  of  smoke  rose  from  the  burning 
villages.  The  danger  was  approaching  to  the  very  walls  of  the 
Settlement.  A  force  of  three  thousand  men  under  colonel  Baillie 
had  been  cut  to  pieces  by  Hyder.  Sir  Hector  Munro,  with  five 
thousand  men,  retreated  towards  Mount  St.  Thomas.  When  the 
evil  tidings  reached  Hastings  he  at  once  adopted  his  course  of  ac- 
tion. He  abandoned  the  Mahratta  war,  and  proposed  that  a  treaty 
of  peace  and  alliance  should  be  concluded.  Sir  Eyre  Coote  pro- 
ceeded with  every  man  that  could  be  shipped  from  Bengal,  to  take 
the  command  at  Madras.  Hyder  Ali  was  alarmed  when  Coote 
took  the  field  in  January,  1781  ;  and  he  immediately  raised  the 
siege  of  Wondewash,  and  the  siege  of  Vellore.  At  length,  on  the 
1st  of  July,  the  English  commander,  having  only  a  force  of  nine 
thousand  men  to  oppose  to  Hyder's  enormous  army,  brought  him 
to  action  at  Porto  Nono,  and  obtained  a  signal  victory.  Another 
battle,  on  the  27th  of  August,  was  not  so  decisive.  Peace  was  not 
concluded  with  the  Mahrattas  till  early  in  1782  ;  and  the  continued 
war  with  Mysore  and  with  Poonah  involved  so  great  a  cost,  that 
Hastings  had  to  look  to  extraordinary  resources,  to  enable  him  to 
carry  on  this  struggle  against  the  most  dangerous  enemy  that  had 
yet  assailed  the  British  power.  He  had  to  repeat  the  policy  of 
1773;  when  he  violated  a  solemn  compact  with  the  mogul,  and 
let  out  his  troops  to  the  nabob  of  Oude  for  the  enslavement  of  the 
Rohillas,  with  the  sole  object  of  replenishing  his  exhausted  trea- 
sury. 

The  rajah  of  Benares,  Cheyte  Sing,  had  become  a  tributary  to 
the  English,  the  nabob  of  Oude  having  surrendered  his  rights  to 
them  in  1774.  Cheyte  Sing  had  regularly  transmitted  to  Calcutta 
his  tribute  of  a  settled  sum.  Hastings  demanded  extraordinary  aid 
from  this  Hindoo  prince ;  and  at  the  beginning  of  the  Mahratta 
war,  in  1 778,  had  compelled  him  to  make  a  contribution  of  five  lacs 
of  rupees  (5O,ooo/.)  for  the  maintenance  of  three  battalions  of  Sepoys. 
The  Governor-General  demanded  that  a  similar  contribution  should 
be  made  in  1779;  and  again  in  1780.  Cheyte  Sing  endeavoured 
to  propitiate  his  taskmaster  by  a  present  of  two  lacs  of  rupees. 
Hastings  concealed  the  transaction  from  the  Council  at  Bengal,  and 
from  the  Directors.  But  after  some  delay,  he  handed  over  the 
money  to  the  Accountant-General  and  insisted  upon  the  contribu* 
•  Burke—"  Speech  on  the  Nabob  of  A.-cot's  debts-" 


436  HISTORY   OF   ENGLAND. 

tion  of  five  lacs  from  Cheyte  Sing,  with  a  fine  of  an  additional  lac 
for  neglect  of  payment.  Hastings  had  evidently  determined  by 
excessive  demands  to  drive  the  unhappy  rajah  into  resistance, 
which  would  have  ended  in  the  confiscation  of  his  possessions. 
To  accomplish  his  purpose,  the  Governor-General  proceeded  to 
Benares ;  required  a  contribution  of  half-a-million  sterling  ;  and 
although  the  rajah  expressed  the  most  abject  devotion,  placed  him 
under  arrest.  But  now  the  despotic  Englishman  had  to  encounter 
a  power  of  which  he  made  little  account.  The  people  of  Benares 
had  been  mildly  governed.  The  rajah  was  popular.  The  religious 
and  national  feelings  of  the  Hindoo  population  were  roused  by  this 
outrage  upon  their  native  prince.  The  streets  of  the  great  Brah- 
minical  city  were  filled  by  an  angry  multitude.  The  sepoys  who 
had  been  appointed  to  arrest  and  guard  Cheyte  Sing  were  butch- 
ered ;  and  the  prince  escaped  from  his  palace-prison.  Hastings 
had  to  barricade  the  house  in  which  he  had  taken  up  his  residence  ; 
and,  finally,  to  leave  the  city  by  night,  with  a  small  band,  amidst 
the  hootings  of  the  populace.  The  rajah  at  first  made  offers  of 
submission,  to  which  Hastings  did  not  vouchsafe  a  reply ;  but 
Cheyte  Sing,  having  been  followed  by  a  formidable  body  of  insur- 
gents, was  able  to  make  a  stand  with  forty  thousand  undisciplined 
men.  Popham,  the  victor  of  Gwalior,  was  ready  to  attack  the 
rajah,  who  was  utterly  routed,  driven  from  his  states,  and  finally 
deposed. 

Hastings  was  disappointed  in  the  amount  of  treasure  which  he 
found,  when  the  fortress  of  Bidgegur,  which  held  the  rajah's  wealth, 
was  surrendered  to  Popham ;  and  the  quarter  of  a  million  that  was 
taken  was  divided  as  prize-money  by  the  army.  He  had  another 
booty  in  view.  Asaph  ul  Dowlah,  the  nabob  and  vizier  of  Oude, 
had  obtained  from  the  British  government  a  brigade  to  defend  him 
against  the  aggressions  of  his  neighbours.  The  weak  and  depraved 
prince  had  thus  virtually  become  a  vassal  of  the  Company.  Has- 
tings required  heavy  payment  for  his  military  aid.  The  nabob 
wanted  money  himself.  The  grandmother  and  mother  of  Asaph  ul 
Dowlah,  called  the  begums  of  Oude,  were  reputed  to  be  possessed 
of  enormous  treasure,  which  they  kept  in  their  palace  of  Fyzabad. 
The  nabob  and  the  Governor-General  met  in  the  fortress  of  Chunar ; 
and  there  it  was  consented  to  by  Asaph  ul  Dowlah  that  the  begums 
should  be  stripped  of  the  domains  which  they  retained  by  his 
father's  bequest  and  his  own  grants,  and  that  their  treasure  should 
go  to  the  English  in  liquidation  of  the  arrears  which  Hastings 
demanded.  A  solemn  treaty  was  entered  into  ;  but  when  the  weak 
prince  was  no  longer  under  the  immediate  dominion  of  the  stern 


DEATH   OF  HYDER.  437 

will  of  the  Governor-General,  he  relented  in  his  meditated  spolia- 
tion of  his  parents.  Hastings  sent  the  most  peremptory  orders  to 
the  English  resident  at  Lucknow,  Mr.  Hamilton,  to  carry  out  the 
treaty,  even  if  force  were  necessary.  If  the  resident  hesitated, 
Hastings  would  come  himself,  to  take  the  work  out  of  feebler 
hands.  The  gates  of  the  palace  of  Fyzabad  were  forced  by  the 
Company's  troops.  The  aged  princesses  were  confined  to  their 
own  apartments,  it  being  alleged  that  they  had  been  concerned  in , 
exciting  the  insurrection  at  Benares.  Sir  Elijah  Impey  hurried  to 
Lucknow  to  receive  depositions  against  the  begums,  and  then  hur- 
ried back  to  Calcutta.  The  begums  would  not  part  with  their 
treasure,  though  imprisoned,  and  dreading  personal  violence.  An 
atrocity,  which  requires  not  the  eloquence  of  Burke  or  Sheridan 
to  rouse  the  indignation  of  every  man  jealous  of  his  country's  hon- 
our, was  perpetrated  upon  the  two  eunuchs  who  presided  over  the 
household  of  Sujah  ul  Dowlah's  widow.  Through  their  persecution 
the  treasure  was  to  be  extorted  from  the  begums.  They  were  put 
in  irons  ;  they  were  half-starved ;  they  were  ordered  to  be  debarred 
from  all  food  till  they  yielded.  The  English  resident,  Nathaniel 
Middleton,  signed  this  cruel  order.  The  old  men  agreed  to  pro- 
duce the  sum  that  was  then  required.  But  the  whole  demand  was 
not  satisfied.  They  were  removed  to  Lucknow.  The  British 
resident  there  incurred  the  disgrace  of  issuing  this  order  to  a 
British  officer : "  Sir,  the  nabob  having  determined  to  inflict  corporal 
punishment  upon  the  prisoners  under  your  guard,  this  is  to  desire 
that  his  officers,  when  they  shall  come,  may  have  free  access  to  the 
prisoners,  and  be  permited  to  do  with  them  as  they  shall  think 
proper."  The  eunuchs  were  imprisoned  till,  after  months  of  terror, 
the  begums  had  surrendered  twelve  hundred  thousand  pounds ;  and 
Hastings  was  content. 

The  case  of  the  rajah  of  Benares,  and  the  case  of  the  begums, 
furnished  the  most  exciting  materials  for  that  eloquence  which  de- 
termined the  impeachment  of  Hastings ;  and  which,  during  the 
first  year  of  that  procrastinated  trial,  attracted  eager  crowds  to 
Westminster  Hall,  to  listen  to  the  greatest  masters  of  oratory  of 
that  age — inferior  probably  to  none  of  any  age.  From  1 788  to  1 795, 
was  this  memorable  trial  carried  on.  Amidst  the  storm  of  invec- 
tive which  denounced  him  as  a  monster  of  cruelty  and  rapacity, 
Hastings  was  sustained  by  the  proud  consciousness  that  he  had 
rendered  eminent  service  to  his  country.  In  his  Address  upon  his 
defence  he  said,  and  said  truly,  "To  the  Commons  of  England,  in 
whose  name  I  am  arraigned  for  desolating  the  provinces  of  their 
dominion  in  India,  I  dare  to  reply  that  they  are — and  their  repre- 


438  HISTORY   OF   ENGLAND. 

sentatives  annually  persist  in  telling  them  so — the  most  flourishing 
of  all  the  States  of  India.  It  was  I  who  made  them  so.  The  val- 
our of  others  acquired — I  enlarged  and  give  consistency  to — the 
dominion  which  you  hold  there.  I  preserved  it."  With  the  treas- 
ures which  he  extorted  from  rajahs  and  begums  he  carried  on  the 
war  in  the  Carnatic  till  the  death  of  Hyder  Aliin  1782;  and  finally 
concluded  an  honourable  peace  with  Hyder's  son  and  successor, 
Tippoo,  in  1 783.  His  administration  ceased  in  the  spring  of  1 785  ; 
when  a  new  system  for  the  government  of  India  was  established, 
after  a  parliamentary  contest  of  unexampled  interest  and  momen- 
tous results. 


COALITION   OF   LORD   NORTH   AND   MR.    FOX.  439 


CHAPTER  XXIV. 

Coalition  of  Lord  North  and  Mr.  Fox.— Pitt's  second  Reform  Bill.— Affairs  of  India.— Fox 
brings  forward  his  India  Bill. — The  Bill  carried  in  the  House  of  Commons — Reject- 
ed in  the  House  of  Lords. — The  Coalition  dismissed  from  office. — Pitt  the  head  of 
the  government. — His  struggle  against  a  majority  of  the  Commons— His  final 
triumph.— Parliament  dissolved.— Results  of  the  elections.— The  Westminster  elec- 
tion.—Pitt's  financial  measures.— Commercial  intercourse  between  Great  Britain  and 
Ireland.— His  third  Reform  Bill. — Disputes  between  Holland  and  Austria.— Pitt's 
Sinking-Fund. — Commercial  Treaty  with  France. — Consolidation  of  Taxes. — War 
with  France  averted. — The  prince  of  Wales's  debts. — Mrs.  Fitzherbert. — The  king 
becomes  insane. — Parliamentary  conflict  on  the  Regency  Bill. — The  king's  Recov- 
ery. 

THE  Coalition  of  the  party  headed  by  lord  North,  and  of  the 
party  headed  by  Mr.  Fox,  had  succeeded  in  compelling  lord  Shel- 
burne  and  Mr.  Pitt  to  resign ;  but  it  was  not  without  difficulty  that 
the  coalesced  chiefs  could  induce  the  king  to  admit  them  to  power. 
After  a  considerable  delay,  the  duke  of  Portland  became  First 
Lord  of  the  Treasury,  and  Fox  and  North  were  appointed  Secre- 
taries of  States.  The  repugnance  of  the  king  to  this  extraordinary 
union  of  two  political  rivals — which,  securing  a  majority  in  the 
House  of  Commons,  forced  upon  him  as  the  real  prime  minister, 
a  man  whom  he  disliked  with  an  intensity  approaching  to  hatred — 
was  more  than  tolerated  by  the  majority  of  the  nation.  The  Coal- 
ition was  odious  to  all  men  not  bound  by  the  trammels  of  party. 
Fox  and  North  received  the  seals  on  the  2nd  of  April,  1 783.  The 
acceptance  of  place  by  Fox  rendered  his  re-election  for  Westmin- 
ster necessary  ;  and  Romilly  writes — "  It  is  almost  a  general  wish 
that  some  man  of  character  and  credit  may  be  opposed  to  him  as  a 
candidate."  He  was  re-elected,  because  no  candidate  was  found  ; 
"  but  the  populace  received  him  with  hisses,  and  every  other  mark 
of  displeasure."* 

Pitt  was  now  in  opposition.  He  had  in  vain  declared  "  a  just 
and  lawful  impediment "  to  the  "  ill-omened  and  unnatural  mar- 
riage," forbiding  the  banns  "  in  the  name  of  the  public  weal."  The 
ministry  were  strong  in  their  majorities.  Pitt  vainly  opposed  the 
conditions  of  the  loan  which  they  had  raised  upon  very  disadvan- 
tageous terms.  On  the  7th  of  May  he,  a  second  time,  brought  for- 
ward the  question  of  Parliamentary  Reform.  He  proposed  that 

*  "  Memoirs  of  Sir  Samuel  Romilly  "—Letter  to  Roget. 


/.4.0  HISTORY   OF    ENGLAND. 

when  the  gross  corruption  of  the  majority  of  voters  in  any  borough 
was  proved  before  a  Committee  of  the  Commons,  the  borough 
should  be  disfranchised ;  and  that  a  large  addition  of  knights  of 
the  shire,  and  of  members  for  the  metropolis,  should  be  made  to 
the  representative  body.  But  Pitt  openly  declared  against  the 
practicability  of  a  perfectly  equal  representation,  and  held  that 
those  places  known  by  the  popular  appellation  of  rotten  boroughs, 
were  to  be  regarded  in  the  light  of  deformities  which  in  some  de- 
gree disfigured  the  fabric  of  the  constitution,  but  which  he  feared 
could  not  be  removed  without  endangering  the  whole  pile.  Fox 
earnestly  defended  the  proposition  :  North  opposed  it.  Pitt's  reso- 
lutions were  rejected  by  a  majority  of  144.  The  young  reformer 
was  more  successful  in  carrying  through  the  House  of  Commons 
a  bill  for  preventing  abuses  in  the  public  offices,  the  chief  object 
of  which  was  to  abolish  an  odious  system  of  perquisites  and  per- 
centages. In  the  House  of  lords  the  adherents  of  the  ministry 
threw  out  the  bill.  The  Session  came  to  a  close  on  the  ipth  of 
July. 

The  condition  of  India  had  for  some  time  occupied  the  serious 
attention  of  British  statesmen.  Burke  and  Dundas  had  especially 
devoted  their  most  earnest  labours  to  unravel  the  complicated  web 
of  Indian  policy,  and  to  devise  some  remedy  for  the  abuses  which 
from  time  to  time  were  brought  to  light.  At  the  close  of  the  Ses- 
sion of  July,  1782,  the  king,  speaking  the  words  of  his  minister, 
lord  Shelburne,  congratulated  Parliament  upon  the  diligence  and 
ardour  with  which  it  had  entered  upon  the  consideration  of  the 
British  interests  in  the  East  Indies  :  "  To  protect  the  persons  and 
fortunes  of  millions  in  those  distant  regions,  and  to  combine  our 
prosperity  with  their  happiness,  are  objects  which  amply  repay  the 
utmost  labour  and  exertion."  At  the  opening  of  the  Session  in 
December  of  the  same  year,  the  king,  said  :  "  The  regulation  of  a 
vast  territory  in  Asia  opens  a  large  field  for  your  wisdom,  prudence, 
and  foresight.  I  trust  that  you  will  be  able  to  frame  some  funda- 
mental laws  which  may  make  their  connection  with  Great  Britain 
a  blessing  to  India."  This  was  imperial  language,  befitting  a 
great  nation — language  pointing  to  far  higher  objects  than  the  gains 
of  a  trading  company,  or  the  acquisition  of  extended  territory. 
When  the  Shelburne  ministry  came  to  an  end,  it  was  imperative 
upon  the  Coalition  to  carry  out  those  large  views  in  a  substantial 
proposal  of  their  own.  To  Burke,  especially,  it  was  a  labour  of 
love  to  analyze  the  vast  mass  of  facts  that  had  been  gathered  from 
various  sources  on  the  affairs  of  India.  In  June,  1783,  the  Ninth 
Report  and  the  Eleventh  Report  of  the  Select  Committee  were 


FOX   BRINGS    FORWARD    HIS    INDIA   BILL.  441 

presented  to  the  House  of  Commons.  In  those  remarkable  docu- 
ments, drawn  up  by  Burke,  we  have  the  clearest  details  of  the 
state  of  the  administration  of  justice  in  the  provinces  of  Bengal, 
Bahar,  and  Orissa,  and  the  largest  views  for  the  solution  of  the 
great  problem  submitted  to  the  Committee,  "  how  the  British  pos- 
sessions in  the  East  Indies  may  be  held  and  governed  with  the 
greatest  security  and  advantage  to  this  country;  and  by  what 
means  the  happiness  of  the  native  inhabitants,  may  be  best  pro- 
moted." Such  were  the  preparations  for  a  comprehensive  mea- 
sure for  the  future  government  of  India. 

The  Session  of  Parliament  was  opened  on  the  nth  of  Novem- 
ber. The  prince  of  Wales,  previous  to  the  arrival  of  the  king,  had 
been  introduced  to  the  House  of  Peers,  with  great  ceremony,  and 
was  conducted  to  his  chair  of  state  on  the  right  hand  of  the 
throne.*  Carlton  House  had  been  assigned  to  him  as  a  residence. 
The  question  of  India  was  the  most  important  topic  of  the  king's 
speech  :  "  The  situation  of  the  East  India  Company  will  require 
the  utmost  exertions  of  your  wisdom,  to  maintain  and  improve  the 
valuable  advantages  derived  from  our  Indian  possessions,  and  to 
promote  and  secure  the  happiness  of  the  native  inhabitants  of 
those  provinces."  On  the  i8th  of  November  Mr.  Fox  brought 
forward  his  India  Bill.  The  government  had  a  commanding  ma- 
jority in  the  House  of  Commons,  and  a  working  majority  in  the 
House  of  Lords.  The  dislike  of  the  king  to  his  ministers  had  not 
abated  during  their  eight  months'  tenure  of  office  ;  their  unpopular- 
ity had  not  materially  diminished.  One  false  move  would  rouse  the 
prejudices  of  the  king  into  obstinate  hostility,  and  carry  the  people 
with  the  king  in  direct  opposition  to  the  votes  of  their  representatives. 
Such  a  danger  was  involved  in  the  India  Bill.  The  necessity  for 
a  decisive  change  in  the  administration  of  Indian  affairs  could  not 
be  disputed.  The  mode  in  which  the  change  was  proposed  to  be 
affected  raised  up  a  storm  of  indignation  against  the  authors  of 
the  measure  :  its  opponents  did  not  stop  to  consider  the  real  point 
at  issue — the  necessity  of  promoting  the  welfare  of  millions  com- 
mitted to  our  rule,— but  saw  in  the  proposed  enactments  nothing 
beyond  a  desire  in  the  ministry  to  grasp  at  a  vast  source  of  power 
and  patronage,  which  would  equally  endanger  the  prerogative  of 
the  crown  and  the  liberties  of  the  people.  In  this  view  there  was 
unquestionably  much  of  exaggerated  alarm,  produced  by  the  ordi- 

*  The  costume  of  the  prince  on  this  occasion  may  provoke  a  smile :  "  His  Royal 
Highness  was  dressed  in  a  black  velvet,  most  richly  embroidered  with  gold  and  pink 
spangles,  and  lined  with  pink  satin.  His  shoes  had  pink  heels  ;  his  hair  was  dressed 
much  out  at  the  sides,  and  very  full  frizzed,  with  two  very  small  curls  at  the  bottom." 


442  HISTORY   OF    ENGLAND. 

nary  artifices  of  political  rivalry.  Mr.  Fox  proposed  that  the  au- 
thority of  the  East  India  Company  should  be  transferred  to  Com- 
missioners to  be  named  by  Parliament,  and  not  removeable  at  the 
pleasure  of  the  Crown.  "  His  plan,"  he  said,  "  was  to  establish  a 
Board  to  consist  of  seven  persons,  who  should  be  invested  with 
full  power  to  appoint  and  displace  officers  in  India,  and  under 
whose  control  the  whole  government  of  that  country  should  be 
placed."  There  were  to  be  eight  assistants  to  this  Board,  who 
should  have  charge  of  the  commercial  concerns  of  the  Company,  but 
subject  to  the  control  of  the  other  seven.  The  Board  was  to  be 
held  in  England ;  it  was  to  be  established  for  three  or  five  years, 
to  try  the  experiment.  If  experience  proved  the  utility  of  the  Board, 
then  the  king  was  to  have  the  future  nomination  of  its  members. 

The  principle  of  Mr.  Fox's  India  Bill  was  resisted  upon  its 
first  introduction  to  parliament.  Mr.  Pitt  declared  his  opinion  that 
the  whole  of  the  proposed  system  was  nothing  more  on  one  side 
than  absolute  despotism,  and  on  the  other  side  the  most  gross  cor- 
ruption. Mr.  Jenkinson  described  the  proposed  commission  as 
the  setting  up  within  the  realm  of  a  species  of  executive  govern- 
ment independent  of  the  crown.  Upon  the  first  reading  of  the 
principal  Bill,  Mr.  John  Scott,  who,  as  lord  Eldon,  filled  so  import- 
ant a  place  in  the  politics  of  his  time,  spoke  temperately  against  a 
hurried  decision  upon  so  important  a  question.  This  was  his 
maiden  speech ;  and  on  that  occasion  Erskine  also  spoke  for  the 
first  time  in  the  House,  in  advocacy  of  the  measure.  Previous  to 
the  second  reading  of  the  Bill,  the  corporation  of  London,  in  com- 
mon-council assembled,  adopted  a  petition  to  the  House  of  Com- 
mons that  the  Bill  might  not  pass  into  law,  setting  forth  that  a 
measure  "  which  directs  a  seizure  and  confiscation  of  powers, 
privileges,  and  property,  granted  by  charter,  secured  and  confirm- 
ed by  various  acts  of  parliament,  hath  exceedingly  alarmed  the 
petitioners,  and  raised  their  fears  and  apprehensions  at  so  uncon- 
stitutional a  measure."  The  example  of  the'  city  was  followed  by 
many  other  corporations.  Against  the  ministry  all  the  light  artillery 
of  squib  and  caricature  was  used  unsparingly.  There  was  a  famous 
caricature  by  James  Sayer — "  Carlo  Khan's  triumphal  entry  into 
Leadenhall  Street," — in  which  Fox  is  represented  riding  on  an 
elephant,  whose  face  is  that  of  lord  North,  which  elephant  is  led 
to  the  door  of  the  India  House  by  Burke,  blowing  a  trumpet.* 
Fox  himself  ascribed  some  loss  of  popularity  to  this  production,  at 
a  time  when  this  species  of  humour  was  treated  seriously  in  the 

*  A  copy  of  the  print  is  giyen  in  Wright's  "  England  under  the  House  of  Hanover," 
rol.  ii.  p.  83. 


THE   BILL   CARRIED    IN   THE   HOUSE  OF   COMMONS.       443 

conflicts  of  party.  The  eloquent  minister  felt  the  difficulty  of  his 
position  ;  but  he  expressed  himself  privately  with  that  manliness 
which  marked  his  public  speeches  :  "  I  am  not  at  all  ignorant  o£ 
the  political  danger  which  I  run  by  this  bold  measure.  But 
whether  I  succeed  or  no,  I  shall  always  be  glad  that  I  attempted, 
because  I  know  that  I  have  done  no  more  than  I  was  bound  to  do 
in  risking  my  power  and  that  of  my  friends  when  the  happiness  of 
so  many  millions  is  at  stake."  *  Fox  triumphed  in  the  House  of 
Commons  by  large  majorities.  The  second  reading  of  his  Bills  was 
carried  by  a  majority  of  114;  and  on  the  gth  of  December  they 
were  presented  by  the  minister  and  a  numerous  body  of  members 
at  the  bar  of  the  House  of  Lords. 

On  the  day  when  the  Coalition  ministry  entered  office,  the  king 
wrote  to  earl  Temple,  then  Lord-Lieutenant  of  Ireland,  to  express 
his  hope  that  many  months  would  not  elapse  before  "  the  Gren- 
villes,  the  Pitts,  and  other  men  of  character  "  would  relieve  him 
from  a  thraldom  to  which  he  had  been  compelled  to  submit. f 
The  opportunity  which  the  king  so  ardently  desired  did  not  come 
till  the  India  Bill  had  provoked  a  manifestation  of  popular  opinion 
which  might  enable  the  crown  to  defy  a  majority  of  the  House  of 
Commons.  It  was  a  dangerous  experiment.  The  nobleman  to 
whom  the  king  had  confided  his  sorrows  in  April  was  ready  in 
December  not  only  to  whisper  to  the  peers,  but  confidently  to  state 
that  whoever  voted  for  the  India  Bill  would  be  considered  by  the 
king  as  his  enemy.  The  effect  upon  all  those  who  desired  to  live 
only  in  the  sunshine  of  royal  favour  was  instantaneous.  "  The 
bishops  waver,  and  the  thanes  fly  from  us,"  writes  Fitzpatrick. 
He  adds,  "  the  public  is  full  of  alarm  and  astonishment  at  the 
treachery  as  well  as  the  imprudence  of  this  unconstitutional 
interference.  Nobody  guesses  what  will  be  the  consequence 
of  a  conduct  that  is  generally  compared  to  that  of  Charles 
the  First  in  1641."  J  The  India  Bills  were  rejected  in  the  Upper 
House  on  the  1 7th  of  December,  by  a  majority  of  ninety-five  to 
seventy-six.  On  the  i8th,  at  midnight,  a  message  was  sent  by  the 
king  to  lord  North  and  Mr.  Fox,  commanding  them  to  give  up 
their  seals  of  office  by  their  under-secretaries,  as  a  personal  inter- 
view would  be  disagreeable  to  his  majesty.  When  the  result  of 
what  Fox  described  as  treachery  on  the  part  of  the  king,  and  meai> 
ness  on  the  part  of  his  friends,  made  it  clear  that  his  official  power 
was  at  an  end,  he  wrote,  "  we  are  so  strong,  that  nobody  can  un- 

*  "Correspondence  of  Fox,"  vol.  ii.  p.  219. 

t  "  Court  and  Cabinets  of  George  III."  vol.  i.  p.  219. 

t  "  Correspondence  of  Fox."  vol.  ii.  p.  220. 


444  HISTORY   OF    ENGLAND. 

dertake  without  madness;  and  if  they  do,  I  think  we  shall  destroy 
them  almost  as  soon  as  they  are  formed."  *  On  the  igth  Pitt  was 
appointed  First  Lord  of  the  Treasury  and  Chancellor  of  the  Ex- 
chequer. Earl  Temple,  who  had  received  the  seals  of  State,  was 
for  the  immediate  dissolution  of  parliament.  Pitt  was  against  this, 
and  Temple  resigned  on  the  22nd,  leaving  the  young  prime  minis- 
ter to  sustain,  almost  alone,  the  most  severe  conflict  for  power 
recorded  in  the  annals  of  parliament. 

The  anxiety  which  Mr.  Pitt  endured  at  the  period  of  his  ex- 
traordinary elevation,  in  his  twenty-fifth  year,  to  the  great  office 
which  few  statesmen  had  reached  except  through  various  stages 
of  political  experience,  has  been  described  by  his  former  tutor, 
George  Pretyman,  who  had  become  his  private  secretary.  Lord 
Temple's  resignation,  he  says,  was  determined  upon  the  evening 
of  the  2ist.  "When  I  went  into  Mr.  Pitt's  bedroom  the  next 
morning,  he  told  me  that  he  had  not  had  a  moment's  sleep.  He 
expressed  great  uneasiness  at  the  state  of  public  affairs ;  at  the 
same  time  declaring  his  fixed  resolution  not  to  abandon  the  situa- 
tion he  had  undertaken,  but  to  make  the  best  stand  in  his  power, 
though  very  doubtful  of  the  result."  f  In  forming  his  administra- 
tion Pitt  had  scarcely  a  statesman  of  any  reputation  to  support 
him,  with  the  exception  of  Thurlow,  as  Chancellor,  and  Dundas, 
who  was  not  of  the  cabinet.  His  father's  friend,  Camden,  stood 
by  him  in  the  House  of  Lords,  although  not  originally  forming 
one  of  the  ministry.  Pitt  had  almost  wholly  to  depend  upon  his 
own  ability  and  courage  to  sustain  the  attack  he  had  to  expect 
from  a  large  majority  of  the  House  of  Commons,  headed  by  Fox, 
Burke,  North,  and  Sheridan.  His  pretensions  appeared  so  absurd 
to  the  great  party  by  whom  he  would  be  opposed,  that  when  the 
writ  for  Appleby  was  moved  for.  a  burst  of  derisive  laughter  issued 
from  the  crowded  opposition  benches.  The  real  parliamentary 
battle  did  not  begin  till  after  the  Christmas  holidays.  During  the 
recess  the  great  sinecure  of  the  Clerkship  of  the  Pells  became  at 
the  disposal  of  the  First  Lord  of  the  Treasury.  Without  any  com- 
promise of  character  Pitt  might  have  taken  the  place  himself.  He 
gave  this  office  to  colonel  Barre,  upon  the  condition  that  he  should 
resign  the  pension  he  had  received  from  the  Rockingham  adminis- 
tration. The  nation  knew  that  Pitt  was  very  poor.  They  now 
knew  that  his  ambition  was  of  a  nobler  kind  than  was  ordinarily 
shown  by  those  who  chose  politics  as  their  vocation.  His  disin- 

*  "  Correspondence  of  Fox,"  vol.  ii.  p.  221. 

t  Tomline — "  Life  of  Pitt,"  vol.  i.  p.  233,  4th  edit.  (This  prelate  changed  his  name 
toTomline  in  1803.) 


MR.    PITT   AT   THE    HEAD   OF   THE   GOVERNMENT.         445 

terestedness  won  him  the  public  esteem,  even  whilst  the  people 
looked  with  little  confidence  upon  his  ability  to  maintain  his  peril- 
ous position.  Had  he  dissolved  parliament  at  the  moment  of  his 
elevation,  men's  minds  would  have  been  greatly  divided  as  to  the 
fitness  of  an  ambitious  young  man,  however  eminent  his  ability,  to 
take  the  chief  direction  of  the  momentous  affairs  of  a  nation  that 
required  no  common  wisdom  to  repair  her  exhausted  finances,  and 
whose  foreign  relations  might  be  compromised  by  the  rashness  of 
inexperience.  Pitt  determined  that  when  he  re-entered  the  House 
of  Commons  after  the  recess,  the  nation  should  at  least  com- 
prehend the  courage  with  which  he  could  resist  an  adverse  ma- 
jority. 

On  the  1 2th  of  January,  1784,  Pitt  appeared  in  the  House  of 
Commons  as  the  head  of  the  government.  Violent  were  the 
debates  on  points  of  form  and  questions  of  principle.  The  minis- 
ter was  beaten  upon  two  divisions,  and  five  adverse  motions  were 
carried  against  him,  that  night.  The  king  wrote  to  him  the  next 
day,  "  I  am  ready  to  take  any  step  that  may  be  proposed  to  oppose 
this  faction,  and  to  struggle  to  the  last  period  of  my  life."  It  was 
well  that  the  king  had  found  a  minister  whose  prudence  was  equal 
to  his  courage.  Regardless  of  his  defeat,  Pitt,  on  the  1 4th  of 
January,  brought  forward  his  own  plan  for  the  government  and 
management  of  the  affairs  of  the  East  India  Company.  His  Bill 
was  read  a  first  time.  In  a  committee  of  the  whole  House  on  the 
State  of  the  Nation,  it  was  moved  that  "the  continuance  of  the 
present  ministers  in  trusts  of  the  highest  importance  and  responsi- 
bility is  contrary  to  constitutional  principles,  and  injurious  to  the 
interests  of  his  majesty  and  his  people."  The  speech  of  Mr. 
Dundas  opposed  this  motion  by  an  argument  difficult  to  controvert. 
He  assumed  that  the  Resolution  was  in  the  nature  and  spirit  of  an 
Address  to  the  king,  to  appoint  a  new  set  oi  ministers,  and  that 
his  majesty  would  thus  reason  with  himself  upon  such  an  Address  : 
"  You  send  me  back  the  ministers  I  have  just  chosen ;  Have  I  not 
then  the  right  to  choose  my  ministers?  Certainly, yes,  you  say. 
But  what  crimes  have  they  committed  ?  What  is  it  they  have  so 
soon  perpetrated  ?  Certainly,  not  one  act  of  their  administration 
is  yet  passed.  Are  they,  therefore,  without  the  confidence  of  the 
House  of  Commons  ?  Are  they  men  so  unpopular,  so  incapable, 
so  insufficient,  that  you  will  not  bear  with  them,  even  for  a  mo- 
ment ?  Is  the  minister  who  devotes  himself  to  the  House  of  Com- 
mons particularly,  so  unpopular  and  so  incapable  ?  I  had  chosen 
him,  I  had  singled  him  out,  as  a  man  of  talents  the  most  astonish- 
ing, of  integrity  the  most  uncorrupt,  of  a  reputation  the  most 


44J  HISTORY   OF    ENGLAND. 

extraordinary.  I  had  fondly  imagined  him  the  favourite  of  the 
House  of  Commons.  I  had  been  taught  to  fancy  that  in  celebra- 
ting his  name  all  my  people  joined  in  one  anthem  of  praise."  The 
Resolution  was  carried  by  a  majority  of  twenty-one.  An  adjourn- 
ment took  place  for  a  few  days  ;  but  still  no  resignation.  On  the 
23rd  of  January,  Mr.  Pitt's  India  Bill  was  thrown  out;  and  Mr. 
Fox  reproduced  his  own  Bill.  The  minister  was  then  goaded  by 
many  speakers  to  declare  whether  he  contemplated  a  dissolution 
of  parliament.  He  resolutely  persisted  in  silence  upon  that  point, 
though  he  indignantly  repelled  some  harsh  language  towards  him 
which  had  been  used  by  general  Conway.  Fox  at  length  moved 
an  adjournment  to  the  next  day,  Saturday,  when  he  hoped  mem- 
bers would  attend,  that  proper  measures  might  be  taken  to  vindi- 
cate the  honour  and  assert  the  privileges  of  the  House.  It  was 
the  general  expectation  that  Parliament  would  be  dissolved.  Mr.. 
Powys  put  a  distinct  question  to  the  minister  "  whether  that  House 
might  expect  to  be  in  existence,  and  to  meet  again  on  Monday 
next  ?  "  Pitt,  after  remaining  for  some  time  silent,  at  length  said, 
that  he  had  no  intention  by  any  advice  he  should  give,  to  prevent 
the  meeting  of  the  House  on  that  day.  The  contest  between  the 
two  parties  was  carried  on,  in  various  shapes,  till  the  8th  of  March. 
Attempts  were  made  to  form  a  union  between  the  leading  members 
of  the  late  government  and  those  of  the  present ;  but  Pitt  steadily 
refused  to  resign  as  the  preliminary  condition  of  such  a  negotia- 
tion. Fox  threatened  the  most  stringent  measures  to  compel 
obedience  to  the  votes  of  the  House  of  Commons.  In  an  early 
stage  of  the  contest,  Pitt,  at  a  meeting  of  his  friends,  said,  "  What 
am  I  to  do  if  they  stop  the  supplies  ?  "  Lord  Mahon  answered, 
"  they  will  not  stop  them ;  it  is  the  very  thing  which  they  will  not 
venture  to  do."  *  The  supplies  were  not  stopped.  At  every  suc- 
cessive trial  of  strength,  the  numbers  of  the  opposition  became 
reduced.  On  the  i8th  of  February,  Pitt  informed  the  House  that 
his  majesty,  after  a  full  consideration  of  the  various  resolutions 
that  had  been  passed,  had  not  thought  proper  to  dismiss  his  minis- 
ters, nor  had  the  ministers  resigned.  Fox  said  that  the  House  of 
Commons  had  never  before  received  from  a  prince  of  the  Bruns- 
wick line  such  a  flat  and  peremptory  negative  to  their  sentiments 
and  wishes.  Under  such  circumstances  he  wished  the  House  to 
pause,  and  to  waive,  for  a  very  short  time,  the  question  of  supplies, 
which  stood  for  that  day.  The  question  of  adjournment  was  carried 
by  a  majority  only  of  twelve.  Another  motion  which  contemplated 
the  dismission  of  ministers  was  carried  by  a  larger  majority.  An 
*  Wilberforce— "  Diary,"  December  33. 


PITT'S    FINAL   TRIUMPH.  447 

Address  to  the  king  was  resolved  on  by  a  majority  of  twenty-one. 
The  king  in  his  answer  said  that  he  was  desirous  that  public 
affairs  should  be  conducted  by  a  firm  and  extended  administra- 
tion ;  but  that  he  did  not  conceive  that  object  would  be  advanced 
by  the  dismissal  of  those  at  present  in  his  service.  On  the  27th  of 
February,  a  motion  of  adjournment,  with  a  view  to  postpone  the 
consideration  of  the  navy  estimates,  was  carried  by  a  majority  of 
seven.  On  the  28th  a  deputation  of  the  Corporation  of  London 
went  in  procession  to  Mr.  Pitt's  house,  to  communicate  to  him  the 
resolution  of  the  Common  Council  to  present  him  with  the  freedom 
of  the  city.  On  that  day  he  had  been  invited  to  dine  with  the 
Grocers'  Company;  and  he  proceeded,  accompanied  by  the  city 
deputation,  to  Grocers'  Hall,  where  Wilkes,  the  chamberlain  of 
the  city,  addressed  him  in  a  complimentary  harangue,  which  thus 
concluded :  "  Your  noble  father,  sir,  annihilated  party ;  and  I  hope 
you  will,  in  the  end,  bear  down  and  conquer  the  hydra  of  faction, 
which  now  rears  its  hundred  heads  against  you.  I  remember  his 
saying,  that,  for  the  good  of  the  people,  he  dared  to  look  the 
proudest  connections  of  this  country  in  the  face.  I  trust  that  the 
same  spirit  animates  his  son;  and,  as  he  has  the  same  support  of 
the  crown  and  the  people,  I  am  firmly  persuaded  that  the  same 
success  will  follow."  At  night  Fleet  Street  and  the  Strand  were 
illuminated,  and  the  populace  drew  the  minister  home  in  his  car- 
riage. Another  Address  to  the  king,  moved  by  Fox,  was  carried 
on  the  ist  of  March,  by  a  majority  of  twelve.  The  king's  answer 
was  in  exactly  the  same  tone  as  his  previous  one.  At  length,  on 
8th  of  March,  an  elaborate  remonstrance,  in  the  form  of  an  Ad- 
dress to  his  majesty,  which  was  drawn  up  by  Burke,  and  moved 
by  Fox,  was  carried  by  a  majority  only  of  one.  The  battle  was 
over.  The  victory  remained  with  Pitt.  The  Mutiny  Bill  was 
passed  ;  the  supplies  were  voted ;  and  on  the  24th  of  March,  the 
king  went  to  the  House  of  Lords,  to  put  an  end  to  the  Session, 
and  to  say,  "  I  feel  it  a  duty  which  I  owe  to  the  constitution  and 
the  country,  to  recur  as  speedily  as  possible  to  the  sense  of  my 
people,  by  calling  a  new  parliament."  On  the  25th  parliament  was 
dissolved. 

During  this  extraordinary  contest,  from  the  I2th  of  January  to 
the  8th  of  March,  there  were  fourteen  motions,  upon  which  the 
House  divided,  carried  against  Mr.  Pitt;  besides  many  others, 
upon  which  there  was  no  division.  The  mode  in  which  the  Coali- 
tion ministry  was  ejected,  through  the  royal  interference  with  the 
vote  of  the  House  of  Peers  upon  the  India  Bill,  was  mean  and  un- 
constitutional. It  has  been  conjectured  that  Pitt  was  probably 


448  HISTORY   OF    ENGLAND. 

acquainted  with  the  manoeuvres  of  Thurlow  and  Temple.*  But  it 
has  been  also  said  that  when  Temple  resigned,  he  "  carried  away 
with  him  the  scandal  which  the  best  friends  of  the  new  government 
could  not  but  lament.  The  fame  of  the  young  prime  minister  pre- 
served its  whiteness.  He  could  declare  with  perfect  truth  that,  if 
unconstitutional  machinations  had  been  employed,  he  had  been  no 
party  to  them."  f  Whatever  opinion  may  be  formed  upon  this 
point,  even  the  political  opponents  of  Pitt  agree  that  in  this  fiery 
struggle  of  two  months,  he  "joined  to  great  boldness,  sagacity  and 
discretion.  By  patience  and  perseverance  he  wearied  out  a  foe 
who  was  more  ardent  than  measured  in  his  attacks ;  and  while  he 
bore  his  defeats  with  calmness,  the  country,  saturate  with  calumny, 
began  to  resent  the  attempt  of  the  Coalition  party  as  the  cabal  of  a 
domineering  aristocracy."  $ 

Never  did  minister  of  Great  Britain  appear  in  so  triumphant  a 
position  as  William  Pitt,  when  he  entered  the  House  of  Commons, 
on  the  i8th  of  May,  to  meet  the  New  Parliament.  He  had  been 
himself  returned  at  the  head  of  the  poll  for  the  University  of 
Cambridge.  His  friend  Wilberforce,  the  son  of  a  Hull  merchant, 
had  contested  the  county  of  York  against  two  Whig  candidates  of 
large  fortune  and  high  connections.  With  the  almost  unanimous 
support  of  the  manufacturers  of  Sheffield,  and  Halifax,  and  Brad- 
ford, and  Leeds,  he  had  beaten  the  great  Yorkshire  aristocracy,  as 
the  representative  of  the  middle  classes.  The  example  presented 
by  this  stronghold  of  independent  principles  was  powerful  through 
the  country.  Pitt  looked  upon  the  benches  of  opposition,  that 
for  two  months  had  echoed  with  the  cheers  of  those  who  had  de- 
nounced him  with  every  virulence  of  invective,  now  thinned  to  a 
very  powerless  minority.  The  Coalition  had  lost  a  hundred  and 
sixty  members.  Fox  took  his  seat  as  a  Scotch  representative ; 
for  although  second  upon  the  poll  for  Westminster,  a  scrutiny  was 
demanded  by  his  opponent,  sir  Cecil  Wray,  and  the  high  bailiff 
would  not  make  a  return.  Out  of  this  scrutiny  a  protracted  contest 
ensued,  which  was  amongst  the  memorable  things  of  a  period  of 
intense  political  agitation.  The  election  for  Westminster  occupied 
forty  days,  under  the  old  system,  in  which  corrupt  influence,  bribery, 
drunkenness,  and  riot,  made  a  great  electioneering  contest  a  scene 
as  disgraceful  to  morality  as  unfavourable  to  freedom.  The  Court 
exerted  itself  in  the  most  undisguised  manner  to  exclude  Fox  from 
parliament.  The  prince  of  Wales  was  as  openly  committed  against 

*  "  Correspondence  of  Fox,"  vol.  ii.  p.  253. 

t  Macaulay— "  Biography  of  Pitt." 

t  "  Correspondence  of  Fox,"  vol.  ii.  p.  253. 


THE   WESTMINSTER    ELECTION.  449 

the  interest  espoused  by  his  father.  The  beautiful  duchess  of 
Devonshire  was  often  present  in  Covent  Garden,  wearing  the 
colours  of  Fox ;  and  the  report  that  she  had  won  the  vote  of  a  hesi- 
tating butcher  with  a  kiss,  was  commemorated  in  many  a  gross 
caricature,  and  many  an  indecent  libel.  The  wits  and  rhymsters 
on  the  side  of  Fox  had  one  invariable  theme  for  their  invective 
against  Pitt — the  purity  of  his  private  life.  In  the  songs  of  Cap- 
tain Morris  during  the  election,  and  in  the  elaborate  squibs  of 
"  The  Rolliad,"  which  subsequently  were  produced  in  a  thick 
octavo  volume,  this  charge  is  urged  with  a  combination  of  the  gross- 
ness  of  Swift  and  the  stupidity  of  D'Urfey,  which  is  revolting  to 
taste  as  well  as  offensive  to  decency.  "  The  virtuous  youth,"  who 
"  was  taught  by  his  dad  on  a  stool,"  was  little  hurt  by  these  mis- 
siles. The  mud  did  not  stick.  But  the  virulence  of  the  attacks  by 
which  he  and  his  friends  were  long  assailed,  as  well  as  his  own 
wonderful  success,  contributed  perhaps  to  impart  to  his  public  de- 
meanour that  cold  and  haughty  aspect  which  was  out  of  harmony 
with  his  real  nature,  which  was  amiable,  affectionate,  and  even 
genial.  The  thinking  and  staid  portion  of  the  nation  respected  his 
decorous  life  ;  as  much  as  they  disliked  the  licentious  habits  of 
his  great  rival.  Although  the  extraordinary  endowments,  the  gener- 
ous disposition,  and  the  winning  manners  of  Fox  commanded  the 
universal  admiration  of  his  friends,  the  people  felt  that  Pitt  was  a 
safer  minister.  The  ardour  with  which  he  applied  himself  to  ques- 
tions of  finance  and  commerce,  which  Fox  did  not  profess  to  un- 
derstand, and  probably  thought  beneath  the  leader  of  a  powerful 
party,  endeared  the  minister  to  the  middle  classes,  and  gave  him 
the  secure  grasp  of  power  and  popularity  during  those  nine  years 
of  real  national  prosperity  which  preceded  the  wars  of  the  French 
Revolution. 

Mr.  Pitt  commenced  his  career  as  a  financial  minister  with  more 
than  common  boldness.  The  permanent  taxes  produced  half-a- 
million  less  than  the  interest  of  the  debt,  the  civil  list,  and  the 
charges  to  which  they  were  appropriated.  The  annual  land-tax 
and  malt-tax  fell  far  short  of  the  naval  and  military  expenditure 
and  that  of  miscellaneous  services.  There  was  a  large  unfunded 
debt.  The  deficit  altogether  amounted  to  three  millions.  The 
confidence  in  the  national  resources  was  so  low  that  the  three  per 
cents  were  fallen  to  about  56.  Smuggling,  especially  of  tea  and 
spirits,  was  carried  on  to  an  enormous  extent.  The  tea  vended  in 
•the  smuggling  trade,  conducted  in  the  most  systematic  manner 
through  consignments  from  foreign  ports,  was  held  considerably  to 
exceed  the  five  million  and  a  half  Ibs.  annually  sold  by  the  East 
VOL.  VI.— 29 


45O  HISTORY   OF    ENGLAND. 

India  Company.  Pitt  took  the  only  effectual  way  to  prevent  smug- 
gling. He  reduced  the  duty  upon  tea  from  50  per  cent,  to  I2j£  per 
cent. ;  and  he  also  reduced  the  duties  on  foreign  spirits.  To  com- 
pensate for  the  expected  deficiency  of  revenue,  he  increased  the 
tax  upon  windows.  To  meet  the  large  general  disproportion  be- 
tween receipt  and  expenditure,  he  imposed  other  taxes,  that  have 
been  abolished,  as  injurious  to  industry,  by  the  sounder  econo- 
mists of  recent  times.  These  taxes  enabled  him  to  provide  for 
the  interest  of  a  new  loan,  in  which  a  large  amount  of  unfunded 
debt  was  absorbed.  Taxes  upon  hats,  linens,  and  calicos,  have 
long  been  condemned,  though  the  Commons  of  1 784  willingly  grant- 
ed them.  Duties  upon  horses,  excise  licences,  and  game  certifi- 
cates, hold  their  ground.  Taxes  upon  candles,  and  upon  bricks 
and  tiles,  were  amongst  the  devices  that  have  had  no  permanent 
existence.  The  tax  upon  paper,  which  Mr.  Pitt  increased,  ap- 
pears to  be  the  last  of  those  restraints  upon  industry  to  which  pur- 
blind legislators  have  clung,  upon  the  principle  that  the  consumers 
do  not  feel  the  tax — the  principle  announced  by  the  minister  of 
1784,  when  "he  proposed  his  additional  duty  on  candles,  namely, 
that  as  the  poorest  cottagers  only  consumed  about  xo  Ibs.  of  can- 
dles annually,  that  class  would  only  contribute  fivepence  a-year  to 
his  new  impost. 

The  Chancellor  of  the  Exchequer  carried  his  proposed  taxes 
without  any  difficulty.  He  was  equally  successful  with  his  India 
Bills.  He  relieved  the  East  India  Company  from  its  financial  em- 
barrassments. He  associated  with  its  Directors  in  the  government 
of  India  that  body  of  Commissioners,  appointed  by  the  crown, 
which  was  long  known  as  the  Board  of  Control.  Under  this 
double  government,  our  empire  in  India,  constantly  increasing  in 
magnitude  by  extension  of  territory,  and  becoming  year  by  year 
more  complicated  and  dangerous,  at  last  appeared  to  be  falling  to 
pieces  in  the  great  revolt,  whose  suppression  will  always  be  regard- 
ed as  one  of  the  most  memorable  examples  of  British  energy.  Un- 
der the  imperial  rule,  we  may  hope  that  the  honest  aspirations  of 
Burke  and  Fox  for  such  a  government  of  India  as  would  regard  the 
welfare  of  the  natives  as  the  first  object  of  legislation,  will  be  real- 
ized ;  that  the  larger  experience  of  three-quarters  of  a  century,  and 
the  nobler  aims  of  statesmen  who  will  consider  India  as  a  sacred 
trust,  will  more  and  more  develop  the  beneficent  powers  of  civil- 
ization amongst  the  millions  over  whom  Providence  has  appointed 
us  the  guardians. 

In  the  Session  of  1785,  Mr.  Pitt  brought  forward  a  subject  an- 
nounced in  the  king's  speech,  the  Commercial  Intercourse  between 


COMMERCE    BETWEEN   GREAT   BRITAIN   AND   IRELAND.    451 

Great  Britain  and  Ireland.  He  described  the  system  which  had 
been  pursued,  from  the  Revolution  to  a  very  recent  period,  as 
that  of  debarring  Ireland  from  the  enjoyment  of  her  own  resources  ; 
of  rendering  that  kingdom  completely  subservient  to  the  interest 
and  opulence  of  England.  That  system  had  been  reversed ;  and 
Ireland  was  free  to  export  her  produce  to  all  parts  of  the  world, 
and  to  import,  and  re-export,  the  produce  of  the  British  Colonies. 
But  no  change  had  taken  place  in  the  intercourse  between  Great 
Britain  and  Ireland  themselves.  There  were,  he  said,  but  two  pos- 
sible systems  for  two  countries  situated  as  these  were  in  relation  to 
each  other.  We  had  tried  the  system  of  having  the  smaller  country 
completely  subservient  and  subordinate  to  the  greater.  "  The  other 
system  was  a  participation  and  community  of  benefits,  and  a  system 
of  equality  and  fairness,  which,  without  tending  to  aggrandize  the 
one  or  depress  the  other,  should  seek  the  aggregate  interests  of  the 
empire.  Such  a  situation  of  commercial  equality,  in  which  there 
was  to  be  a  community  of  benefits,  demanded  also  a  community  of 
burthens ;  and  it  was  this  situation  in  which  he  was  anxious  to 
place  the  two  countries."  The  propositions  of  Mr.  Pitt,  large  and 
liberal  as  they  were,  although  encumbered  with  some  provisions 
opposed  to  a  really  free  commercial  policy,  were  thoroughly  dis- 
tasteful to  the  manufacturers  of  England,  and  equally  opposed  to 
the  narrowness  of  what  in  Ireland  was  deemed  patriotism.  The 
Resolutions  of  the  minister  were  carried  by  considerable  majori- 
ties in  the  British  Parliament,  but  being  passed  by  a  very  small 
majority  in  the  Irish  Parliament,  the  Bill  was  withdrawn.  Whilst 
this  measure  was  being  debated  at  Westminster,  Mr.  Pitt  a  third  time 
brought  forward  a  Bill  for  Reform  in  Parliament.  His  specific  plan 
was  to  disfranchise  thirty-six  rotten  boroughs,  giving  compensation 
to  those  who  regarded  them  as  property  ;  to  transfer  the  right  of 
election  to  counties  and  to  unrepresented  large  towns ;  and  to  ex- 
tend the  franchise  in  counties  to  copyholders.  The  Bill  was 
not  introduced  as  a  government  measure  ;  and  it  was  rejected  by 
a  large  majority,  as  its  author  probably  expected  it  would  be.  That 
Pitt  was  at  this  time  sincere  in  his  wish  for  a  temperate  reform 
ithere  can  be  little  doubt.  George  Rose  says  that  he  himself  dread- 
ed that  a  breach  should  be  made  in  the  representation  which  mod- 
erate reformers  could  not  prevent  being  widened  :  "  I  determined 
against  an  acquiescence  in  Mr.  Pitt's  plan,  which  he  pressed  with 
(enthusiasm,  not  only  in  the  House  of  Commons,  but  in  private,  with 
such  friends  as  he  thought  he  could  influence."  Rose  offered  to 
(retire  from  his  office,  but  to  that  the  minister  would- not  consent. 
The  Secretary  of  the  Treasury  felt,  however,  what  probably  many 


452  HISTORY   OF   ENGLAND. 

others  felt,  "  that  a  person  in  my  confidential  post,  taking  a  differ- 
ent line  from  him  on  a  question  of  such  infinite  magnitude,  might 
lead  to  a  doubt  of  his  sincerity."  * 

At  the  opening  of  the  Session  on  the  24th  of  January,  1789, 
the  king  informed  the  parliament  that  disputes  which  appeared 
to  threaten  an  interruption  to  the  tranquillity  of  Europe  had  been 
brought  to  an  amicable  conclusion.  The  tranquillity  of  Europe 
was  always  liable  to  be  interrupted  by  the  intrigues  of  the  great 
powers  for  extended  territory  and  influence.  The  emperor  Joseph 
had  been  attempting  to  coerce  the  States  of  Holland,  distracted 
by  two  contending  political  parties,  into  a  surrender  of  the  fort- 
resses of  the  Austrian  Netherlands,  which  had  been  always  gar- 
risoned by  the  Dutch  since  the  conclusion  of  the  War  of  the 
Succession,  as  a  bulwark  against  the  inroads  of  France.  After 
four  years  of  dispute  and  threatened  war,  the  court  of  Versailles 
concluded  a  treaty  of  commercial  league,  and  close  alliance,  with 
Holland,  by  which  the  emperor  was  restrained,  but  which  placed 
the  States  very  much  in  the  power  of  France.  Great  Britain  ab- 
stained from  interference.  It  would  have  been  difficult  to  interfere, 
whilst  in  Holland  there  was  a  powerful  faction  opposed  to  the  House 
of  Orange. 

Pitt,  at  this  time,  was  almost  exclusively  occupied  with  a  great 
financial  scheme,  from  which,  with  more  than  ordinary  complacency, 
he  sanguinely  expected  the  most  wonderful  results.  He  wrote  to 
Wilberforce,  "  The  produce  of  our  revenues  is  glorious  ;  and  I  am 
half  mad  with  a  project  which  will  give  our  supplies  the  effect 
almost  of  magic  in  the  reduction  of  debt."f  It  was  the  scheme 
of  the  Sinking  Fund.  The  public  income  now  happily  exceeded 
the  expenditure,  and  it  was  proposed  that  the  notion  of  an  accumu- 
lating fund  to  be  applied  to  the  reduction  of  the  debt,  which  was 
partially  attempted  by  Sir  Robert  Walpole,  should  be  engrafted 
upon  the  perpetual  financial  arrangements ;  that  a  million  should 
be  annually  placed  in  the  hands  of  commissioners,  so  as  to  be 
beyond  the  power  of  a  minister  to  withdraw.  It  was  believed  that 
accumulating  at  compound  interest,  with  the  addition  of  such 
terminable  annuities  as  should  fall  in,  it  would  gradually  extin- 
guish the  claims  of  the  public  creditor.  The  plan  might  have 
worked  well,  if  the  minister  had  been  debarred  from  contracting 
any  new  loans.  For  years  the  public  had  as  much  confidence  in 
this  scheme  as  its  author  had.  It  was  boasted,  that  "  in  eight 
years,  Mr.  Pitt's  sinking  fund,  in  fact,  purchased  13,  6(7,  8957.  of 

*  "  Diaries  and  Correspondence  of  George  Rose,"  vol.  i.  p.  35. 
t"  Correspondence  of  Wilberforce,"  vol.  i.  p.  y. 


COMMERCIAL   TREATY   WITH    FRANCE.  453 

stock  at  the  cost  of  10,  599,  2657.  of  cash  ;  "  and  it  was  proclaimed 
that  "  this  measure,  then,  is  of  more  importance  to  Great  Britain 
than  the  acquisition  of  the  American  mines."*  There  was  a 
superstitious  belief,  long1  entertained,  that  the  new  sinking  fund 
would,  "  by  some  mysterious  power  of  propagation  belonging  to 
money,  put  into  the  pocket  of  the  public  creditor  great  sums  not 
taken  out  of  the  pocket  of  the  tax-payer  "  f  The  delusion  was 
manifest  when  it  was  demonstrated  that  during  the  war  the  debt 
had  been  actually  augmented,  to  the  extent  of  eleven  millions,  by 
the  less  advantageous  terms  upon  which  money  was  borrowed  by 
the  Exchequer,  compared  with  the  purchases  made  by  the  com- 
missioners who  managed  the  sinking  fund.  A  great  authority  in 
finance  has  put  the  whole  philosophy  of  the  matter  in  the  form  of 
an  axiom :  "  No  sinking  fund  can  be  efficient  for  the  purpose  of 
diminishing  the  debt  if  it  be  not  derived  from  the  excess  of  the 
public  revenue  over  the  public  expenditure."  J 

On  the  opening  of  the  Session  on  the  23rd  of  January,  1787,  the 
king  announced  that  he  had  concluded  a  treaty  of  navigation  and 
commerce  with  the  king  of  France.  The  negotiation  was  completed 
at  Versailles,  on  the  26th  of  September,  1786.  The  provisions 
of  this  treaty  were  of  the  most  liberal  character.  There  was  to 
be  the  most  perfect  freedom  of  intercourse  allowed  between  the 
subjects  and  inhabitants  of  the  respective  dominions  of  the  two 
sovereigns.  The  duties  to  be  paid  on  French  commodities  in 
England  were  thus  rated  :  Wines,  no  higher  duties  than  on  those 
of  Portugal ;  brandy,  seven  shillings  per  gallon  ;  vinegar,  less  than 
half  the  previous  duty  ;  olive-oil,  the  lowest  duly  paid  by  the  most 
favoured  nation.  The  following  duties  were  to  be  levied  recipro- 
cally on  both  kingdoms :  hardwares  and  cutlery,  cabinet  wares, 
furniture,  turnery,  not  higher  than  ro  per  cent,  ad  valorem  ;  cotton 
and  woollen  manufactures,  except  mixed  with  silk,  12  per  cent.; 
gauzes,  10  per  cent.;  linens,  same  as  linens  from  Holland;  sad- 
dlery, 15  per  cent. ;  millinery,  12  per  cent;  plate  glass  and  glass 
ware,  porcelain  and  earthenware,  12  per  cent.  We  have  already 
glanced  at  the  general  nature  of  this  treaty  in  a  commercial  point 
of  view.§  Mr.  Pitt  set  forth  the  political  advantages  of  this  meas- 
ure in  an  argument  worthy  of  a  great  statesman  asserting  principles 
of  lasting  importance  :  "  Considering  the  treaty  in  its  political  view 
he  should  not  hesitate  to  contend  against  the  too-frequently  ad- 
vanced doctrine,  that  France  was,  and  must  be,  the  unalterable 

*  Chalmers'  "  Comparative  Estimate,  corrected  to  1812,"  p.  189. 

t  Macaulay — "  Biography  of  Pitt." 

t  "  Works  of  David  Ricardo,"  p.  140.  §  Ante,  p.  357- 


454  HISTORY   OF    ENGLAND. 

enemy  of  Britain.  His  mind  revolted  from  this  position  as  mon- 
strous and  impossible.  To  suppose  that  any  nation  could  be 
unalterably  the  enemy  of  another  was  weak  and  childish.  It  had 
neither  its  foundation  in  the  experience  of  nations,  nor  in  the 
history  of  man.  It  was  a  libel  on  the  constitution  of  political 
societies,  and  supposed  the  existence  of  diabolical  malice  in  the 
original  frame  of  man.  But  these  absurd  tenets  were  taken  up 
and  propagated ;  nay,  it  was  carried  farther ;  it  was  said,  that  by 
this  treaty,  the  British  nation  was  about  blindly  to  throw  itself 
into  the  arms  of  its  constant  and  uniform  foe.  Men  reasoned  as 
if  this  treaty  were  not  only  to  extinguish  all  jealousy  from  our 
bosoms,  but  also  completely  to  annihilate  our  means  of  defence  ; 
as  if  by  the  treaty  we  gave  up  so  much  of  our  army,  so  much  of 
our  marine  ;  as  if  our  commerce  was  to  be  abridged,  our  navigation 
to  be  lessened,  our  colonies  to  be  cut  off  or  to  be  rendered  de- 
fenceless, and  as  if  all  the  functions  of  the  State  were  to  be  sunk 
in  apathy.  What  ground  was.  there  for  this  train  of  reasoning  ? 
Did  the  treaty  suppose  that  the  interval  of  peace  between  the  two 
countries  would  be  so  totally  unemployed  by  us  as  to  disable  us 
from  meeting  France  in  the  moment  of  war  with  our  accustomed 
strength  ?  Did  it  not  much  rather,  by  opening  new  sources  of 
wealth,  speak  this  forcible  language — that  the  interval  of  peace,  as 
it  would  enrich  the  nation,  would  also  prove  the  means  of  enabling 
her  to  combat  her  enemy  with  more  effect  when  the  day  of  hostility 
should  come?  It  did  more  than  this  ,  by  promoting  habits  of  friendly 
intercourse,  and  of  mutual  benefit,  while  it  invigorated  the  resources 
of  Britain,  it  made  it  less  likely  that  she  should  have  occasion  to 
call  forth  those  resources.  It  certainly  had  at  least  the  happy 
tendency  to  make  the  two  nations  enter  into  more  intimate  com- 
munion with  one  another,  to  enter  into  the  same  views  even  of 
taste  and  manners ;  and  while  they  were  mutually  benefited  by  the 
connexion,  and  endeared  to  one  another  by  the  result  of  the  com- 
mon benefits,  it  gave  a  better  chance  for  the  preservation  of  har- 
mony between  them,  while,  so  far  from  weakening,  it  strengthened 
their  sinews  for  war.  That  we  should  not  be  taken  unprepared 
for  war,  was  a  matter  totally  distinct  from  treaty."  It  is  painful 
to  behold  Mr.  Fox  contending"  that  France  was  the  natural  foe 
of  Great  Britain,  and  that  she  wished  by  entering  into  a  commer- 
cial treaty  with  us  to  tie  our  hands,  and  prevent  our  engaging  in 
any  alliances  with  other  powers."  The  argument  for  perpetual 
international  hostility  was  carried  to  the  point  of  absurdity  by 
Mr.  Francis,  who  thus  declaimed  :  "It  seems  we  are  arrived  at 
a  new  enlightened  era  of  affection  for  our  neighbours,  and  of  liber- 


COMMERCIAL   TREATY   WITH    FRANCE.  455 

ality  to  our  enemies,  of  which  our  uninstructed  ancestors  had  no 
conception.  The  pomp  of  modern  eloquence  is  employed  to  blast 
even  the  triumphs  of  lord  Chatham's  administration.  The  polemic 
laurels  of  the  father  must  yield  to  the  pacific  myrtles  which  shadow 
the  forehead  of  the  son.  Sir,  the  first  and  most  prominent  feature 
in  the  political  character  of  lord  Chatham  was  anti-gallican.  His 
glory  is  founded  on  the  resistance  he  made  to  the  united  power 
of  the  House  of  Bourbon.  The  present  minister  has  taken  the 
opposite  road  to  fame ;  and  France,  the  object  of  every  hostile 
principle  in  the  policy  of  lord  Chatham,  is  the  gens  amicissima  of 
his  son." 

That  the  commercial  treaty  was  not  a  failure  as  regarded  the 
products  of  our  own  country  is  evident  from  the  fact  that  the  annual 
average  export  of  British  manufactures  to  France  in  the  six  years 
ending  with  1774  was  87,1647. ;  in  the  six  years  ending  with  1792  it 
was  7i7,8o7/.  Arthur  Young,  after  the  treaty  had  been  in  existence 
less  than  a  year,  found  the  French  crying  out  for  a  war  with  England. 
"  It  is  easy  enough  to  discover  that  the  origin  of  all  this  violence 
is  the  commercial  treaty,  which  is  execrated  here  as  the  most  fatal 
stroke  to  their  manufactures  they  ever  experienced."  He  found  this 
temper  prevailing  at  Lisle.*  The  next  year,  at  the  fair  of  Guibray, 
near  Caen,  he  saw  many  English  goods,  especially  the  crockery 
known  as  queen's  ware.  Of  this  ware  there  were  French  imitations, 
but  very  inferior.  Young  asked  the  dealer  if  he  did  not  think  the 
treaty  of  commerce  would  be  very  injurious,  with  such  a  difference 
in  the  goodness  of  the  manufactured  articles.  The  sensible  French- 
man replied,  "  Quite  the  contrary.  However  bad  is  our  imitation, 
it  is  the  best  thing  we  have  yet  produced  in  France.  We  shall 
produce  better  next  year — we  shall  improve — we  shall  go  beyond 
you."  I  believe,  adds  Young,  he  is  a  very  good  politician,  and  that 
without  competition  it  is  not  possible  to  improve  any  fabric,  f  The 
treaty  was  annulled  in  the  frenzy  of  the  Revolution. 

To  Mr.  Pitt  belongs  the  honour,  in  this,  the  fourth  year  of  his  ad- 
ministration, of  simplifying  the  complicated  system  of  indirect  taxa- 
tion, by  consolidating  the  several  duties  of  customs,  excise,  and 
stamps.  The  duties  required  to  be  paid  upon  one  article  were  some- 
times to  be  hunted  through  twenty  or  thirty  acts  of  parliament,  each 
charging  some  additional  duty,  or  making  a  special  appropriation 
of  the  proceeds  of  a  particular  tax.  The  complication  may  be  judged 
from  the  fact  that  three  thousand  resolutions  were  required  to  carry 
a  measure  of  consolidation  into  effect.  When  Pitt  had  introduced  his 
measure,  Burke  characterized  the  speech  of  the  minister  as  one  of  e* 

*  "  Travels  in  France,"  p.  73.  t  Ibid.,  p.  79. 


456  HISTORY   OF    ENGLAND. 

traordinary  clearness  and  perspicuity,  and  said  that  it  behoved  those 
who  felt  it  their  duty  frequently  to  oppose  the  measures  of  the  govern- 
ment, to  rise  up  manfully,  and,  doing  justice  to  the  right  honourable 
gentleman's  merit,  to  return  him  thanks  on  behalf  of  themselves  and 
the  country,  for  having  in  so  masterly  a  manner  brought  forward  a 
plan  which  gave  ease  and  accommodation  to  all  engaged  in  com- 
merce, and  advantage  and  increase  to  the  revenue.  "  Thus,"  says 
lord  John  Russell,  "  in  the  course  of  little  more  than  three  years  from 
Mr.  Pitt's  acceptance  of  office  as  First  Lord  of  the  Treasury,  great 
financial  and  commercial  reforms  had  been  effected  .... 
The  nation,  overcoming  its  difficulties,  and  rising  buoyant  from  its 
depression,  began  rapidly  to  increase  its  wealth,  to  revive  its 
spirit,  and  renew  its  strength.  Such  was  the  work  of  Mr.  Pitt, 
now  no  longer  the  minister  of  the  court,  but  of  the  nation.  The 
cry  of  secret  influence,  and  the  imputation  of  his  being  an  organ  of 
an  unseen  power,  was  heard  less  and  less  as  the  resources  of  his 
powerful  understanding  developed  their  energies  and  ripened  their 
fruits."  * 

The  amicable  relations  between  the  governments  of  Great 
Britain  and  France,  which  appeared  to  have  been  consolidated  by 
the  commercial  treaty,  were  interrupted  in  the  autumn  of  1787  by 
the  interference  of  France  with  the  civil  dissensions  amongst  the 
States  of  the  United  Provinces,  which  had  taken  a  new  direction 
after  the  disputes  with  the  emperor  Joseph  had  been  terminated. 
To  the  firmness  and  moderation  of  the  British  government  it  is 
owing  that  a  war  was  averted.  The  great  Frederick  of  Prussia  had 
died  on  the  I7th  of  August,  1786.  His  nephew  and  successor, 
Frederick  William  III.,  brother-in-law  to  the  prince  of  Orange,  had 
espoused  the  cause  of  his  sister's  husband  against  those  States  who 
had  stripped  the  Stadtholder  of  his  power  and  prerogatives.  The 
princess  of  Orange,  a  lady  possessing  great  vigour  of  character, 
was  proceeding  to  the  Hague  from  Nimeguen,  to  hold  a  conference 
with  the  leaders  of  the  Orange  party,  when  she  was  stopped  by  a 
troop  of  armed  burghers  and  placed  under  arrest.  The  king  of 
Prussia-  immediately  marched  an  army  into  the  province  of  Zealand, 
and  avowed  his  intention  to  restore  the  Stadtholder  to  his  heredi- 
tary authority.  It  is  unnecessary  for  us  to  trace  the  course  of 
these  events,  except  as  they  bear  upon  the  acts  of  the  British  govern- 
ment. These  are  very  clearly  related  in  the  king's  speech  on  open- 
ing the  Session  on  the  27th  of  November.  Whilst  Great  Britain 
had  endeavoured  by  good  offices  to  restore  tranquillity  and  maintain 
lawful  government,  she  avowed  her  intention  of  counteracting  alj 

*  "  Life  of  Fox,"  vol.  ii.  p.  138. 


WAR  WITH  FRANCE  AVERTED. 


457 


forcible  interference  on  the  part  of  France  in  the  internal  affairs  of 
the  Dutch  republic.  The  king  of  Prussia  having  determined  to 
obtain  satisfaction  for  the  insult  offered  to  the  princess  of  Orange, 
the  party  who  had  usurped  the  government  of  Holland  applied  to 
the  king  of  France  for  his  assistance,  who  notified  to  the  king  of 
Great  Britain  his  intention  of  granting  their  request.  "  I  did  not 
hesitate,"  said  the  king  to  parliament,  "  to  declare  that  I  could  not 
remain  a  quiet  spectator  of  the  armed  interference  of  France,  and  I 
gave  immediate  orders  for  augmenting  my  forces  by  sea  and  land." 
The  success  of  the  Prussian  troops  enabled  the  Provinces  "  to 
deliver  themselves  from  the  oppression  under  which  they  laboured, 
and  to  re-establish  their  lawful  government."  An  explanation 
took  place  between  France  and  Great  Britain,  and  both  countries 
mutually  agreed  to  disarm,  and  to  place  their  naval  establishments 
upon  the  same  footing  as  at  the  beginning  of  the  year. 

The  career  of  Mr.  Pitt, — the  only  minister  who  appears  to  have 
received  the  entire  confidence  of  George  the  Third  without  surrender- 
ing his  own  independent  convictions  on  large  questions  of  policy, — 
was  not  wholly  with  out  difficulty  and  danger  as  regarded  his  relations 
to  the  king  and  the  prince  of  Wales,  in  the  serious  differences 
which  had  arisen  between  them.  The  pecuniary  embarrassments 
of  the  prince  of  Wales  were  of  so  onerous  a  nature  that  his  friends 
thought  it  necessary  to  bring  them  under  the  consideration  of  Par- 
liament. When  he  took  up  his  residence  at  Carlton  House  in 
1783,  6o,ooo/.  had  been  voted  by  parliament  to  defray  the  expense 
of  establishing  a  separate  household.  The  king  allowed  l:is  son 
5o,ooo/.  a  year  out  of  the  Civil  List,  and  the  annual  revenue  of  the 
duchy  of  Cornwall  amounted  to  I2,ooo/.  At  the  Midsummer  of 
1786  the  prince  owed  i6o,ooo/.  The  king  refused  to  give  any 
assistance  ;  and  the  heir-apparent  dismissed  the  state  officers  of  his 
household,  sold  his  horses,  and  stopped  the  improvements  going 
forward  in  his  residence.  But  the  debts  were  very  slightly  dimin- 
ished. There  were  serious  difficulties  in  making  that  application 
to  Parliament,  which  eager  worshippers  of  the  rising  sun  overlook- 
ed, although  public  rumour  spoke  with  no  doubtful  voice  upon  a  very 
delicate  question.  It  was  believed  that  the  prince  of  Wales, 
contrary  to  the  provisions  of  the  royal  marriage  act,  was  married  to 
Mrs.  Fitzherbert ;  and  that  the  lady  being  a  Roman  Catholic,  such 
marriage,  according  to  the  Act  of  Settlement,  had  rendered  the 
prince  "  for  ever  incapable  to  inherit,  possess,  or  enjoy  the  crown 
of  this  kingdom."  On  the  27th  of  April,  r  787,  alderman  Newnham, 
one  of  the  members  for  the  City,  stated  that  he  should  propose  an 
Address  to  the  king,  praying  him  to  take  into  consideration  the 


45^  HISTORY   OF   ENGLAND. 

state  of  the  affairs  of  the  prince  of  Wales,  and  to  grant  him  relief, 
which  the  House  would  make  good.  Mr.  Rolle  without  hesitation 
said  that  this  was  "  a  question  which  went  immediately  to  affect 
our  Constitution  in  Church  and  State,"  and  that  he  would  oppose 
the  motion,  whenever  it  was  brought  forward,  by  moving  the  pre- 
vious question.  Something  was  necessary  to  be  done.  On  the 
3oth,  alderman  Newnham  stated  that  he  had  been  much  pressed, 
from  various  quarters,  to  forego  his  purpose.  He  did  not  wish  to 
bind  the  House  to  the  form  of  an  Address,  but  said  that  the_ 
prince  did  not  shrink  from  any  inquiry.  Mr.  Fox,  in  the  course  of 
a  short  speech,  took  notice  of  the  previous  allusion  to  something 
full  of  danger  to  the  Church  and  State.  He  supposed  that  allusion 
must  have  reference  to  a  low  malicious  falsehood,  propagated  to 
depreciate  the  character  of  the  prince — a  pretended  report  of  a 
fact  impossible  to  have  happened.  In  answer  to  a  question  from 
Mr.  Rolle,  Mr.  Fox  further  said,  that  "  he  did  not  deny  the  calum- 
ny in  question,  merely  with  regard  to  the  effect  of  certain  existing 
laws  ;  but  he  denied  it  in  tofo,  in  point  of  fact,  as  well  as  law.  The 
fact  not  only  never  could  have  happened  legally,  but  never  did 
happen  in  any  way  whatsoever.''  He  added,  that  "he  had  spoken 
from  direct  authority."  Bishop  Tomline  gravely  remarks  that 
"  this  unequivocal  and  authentic  assurance  could  not  but  be  highly 
satisfactory  both  to  parliament  and  the  public."  And  yet  many  of 
the  parliament  and  some  of  the  public  had  no  belief  in  the  assur- 
ance, although  they  believed  that  Mr.  Fox  was  authorized  to  deny 
what  he  termed  the  malicious  lalsehood.  At  the  end  of  December, 
1785,  Mr.  Fox  had  written  to  the  prince  a  letter,  pointing  out  the 
extreme  danger  of  "  a  desperate  step  "  which  he  was  informed  that 
his  royal  highness  intended  to  take.  The  prince  replied,  on  the 
nth,  that  "the  world  will  soon  be  convinced  that  there  not  only  is 
not,  but  never  was,  any  ground  for  these  reports  which  of  late 
have  been  so  malevolently  circulated."  Within  ten  days  of  the  date 
of  this  letter,  namely,  on  the  2istof  December,  Mrs.  Fitzherbert  was 
married  by  a  Protestant  clergyman  to  the  prince  of  Wales,  in  the 
presence  of  six  witnesses.  "Although  the  marriage  of  Mrs. 
Fitzherbert  was  void  by  the  English  law,  it  was  sanctioned  by  the 
law  of  her  own  church,  and  she  could  without  scruple  live  with  the 
the  prince  of  Wales  as  her  husband."  *  On  the  day  after  his  dec- 
laration in  parliament,  a  gentleman  at  Brooks's  told  Mr.  Fox  that 
he  had  been  misinformed  ;  "  I  was  present  at  that  marriage."  f 
The  prince  is  recorded  on  the  same  day  to  have  said  to  Mrs. 

*  Lord  J.  Russell's  "  Life  of  Fox,"  vol.  ii.  p.  185.  t  Ibid.,  p.  186. 


THE    KING   BECOMES   INSANE.  459 

Fitzherbert,  "  Only  conceive,  Maria,  what  Fox  did  yesterday :  he 
went  down  to  the  House  and  denied  that  you  and  I  were  man  and 
wife."*  Mr.  Fox,  says  lord  J.Russell,  "perceived  how  com- 
pletely he  had  been  duped.  He  immediately  renounced  the  acquaint- 
ance of  the  prince,  and  did  not  speak  to  him  for  more  than 
a  year."  The  matter  was  hushed  up ;  the  prince's  debts  were 
paid  by  parliament  after  negotiations  and  squabbles  which  are 
now  of  little  interest.  Mr.  Fox  could  not  retract  his  declara- 
tion, without  exposing  the  prince  to  the  risk  of  losing  his  succes- 
sion to  the  Crown,  according  to  lord  John  Russell.  His  indigna- 
tion at  having  been  made  the  instrument  of  declaring  a  falsehood 
did  not  prevent  him  advocating  the  claims  of  the  prince  of  Wales 
to  almost  uncontrolled  power,  in  the  great  question  of  The  Regency 
which  arose  in  1788. 

On  the  24th  of  October,  the  king,  having  been  out  of  health, 
went  to  the  levee,  "  with  a  view  of  putting  an  end  to  the  stories 
that  were  circulated  with  much  industry,  "f  A  violent  fever 
ensued  ;  and  in  a  few  days  the  sovereign  was  decidely  insane.  On 
the  7th  Mr.  Grenville  wrote,  "  I  am  afraid  that  it  would  be  very 
sanguine  indeed  to  say  that  there  is  even  any  hope  that  the  king 
will  recover  both  his  health  and  his  understanding."  J  The  public 
were  to  be  kept  in  ignorance  of  this  alarming  event.  But  the  par- 
liament was  to  meet  on  the  2oth  of  November.  An  adjournment 
of  a  fortnight  was  agreed  to.  Meanwhile  the  physicians  who  had 
attended  his  majesty  were  examined  on  oath  before  the  Privy 
Council.  All  agreed  that  the  king  could  not  attend  to  public  af- 
fairs ;  three  expressed  confidence  in  his  recovery.  A  Committee 
of  the  two  Houses  had  also  examined  the  medical  authorities,  and 
had  reported  their  opinions.  Mr.  Fox  had  been  travelling  in  Italy, 
but  being  summoned  home,  he  appeared  in  his  place  in  parliament 
on  the  loth  of  December;  and  there  declared  that,  "in  his  firm 
opinion,  his  royal  highness  the  prince  of  Wales  had  as  clear,  as 
express  a  right  to  assume  the  reins  of  government,  and  exercise 
the  power  of  .sovereignty,  during  the  continuance  of  the  illness  and 
incapacity  with  which  it  had  pleased  God  to  affect  his  majesty,  as 
in  the  case  of  his  majesty  having  undergone  a  natural  and  perfect 
demise."  The  two  Houses,  he  said,  "were  alone  qualified  to 
pronounce  when  the  prince  ought  to  take  possession  of,  and  exer- 
cise, his  right ;  but  as  short  a  time  as  possible  ought  to  intervene 
between  the  prince  of  Wales  assuming  the  sovereignty,  and  the 

*  Lord  John  Russell,  quoting  "  Memoirs  of  Mrs.  Fitzherbert." 

t    W.  W.  Grenville,  "  Court  of  George  III.,"  vol.  i.  p.  431.  t  Ibid.,  p.  435. 


469  HISTORY   OF    ENGLAND. 

present  moment."*  Mr.  Pitt  maintained  that,  although  the  claim 
of  the  prince  was  entitled  to  the  most  serious  consideration,  in  the 
case  of  the  interruption  of  the  personal  exercise  of  the  royal  author- 
ity, without  any  previous  lawful  provision  for  carrying  on  the  govern- 
ment, "  it  belonged  to  the  other  branches  of  the  legislature,  on  the 
part  of  the  nation  at  large,  to  provide,  according  to  their  discretion, 
for  the  temporary  exercise  of  the  royal  authority,  in  the  name,  and 
on  the  behalf  of  the  sovereign,  in  such  manner  as  they  should  think 
requisite  ;  and  that,  unless  by  their  decision,  the  prince  of  Wales 
had  no  more  right — speaking  of  strict  right — to  assume  the  govern- 
ment, than  any  other  individual  in  the  country."  In  this  first  de- 
bate an  amount  of  passion  was  displayed  on  the  part  of  Burke, 
which  greatly  detracted  from  his  reputation  as  a  sound  authority 
upon  constitutional  questions.  Pitt  had  said  that  to  assert  a  right 
in  the  prince  of  Wales,  independent  of  the  decision  of  the  two 
Houses  of  Parliament,  was  treason  to  the  constitution.  Burke 
exclaimed,  "  where  was  the  freedom  of  debate,  where  was  the  privi- 
lege of  parliament,  if  the  rights  of  the  prince  of  Wales  could 
not  be  spoken  of  in  that  House,  without  their  being  liable  to  be 
charged  with  treason  by  one  of  the  prince's  competitors?"  Pitt 
quietly  asked  whether,  "  at  that  period  of  our  history  when  the 
constitution  was  settled  on  that  foundation  on  which  it  now  existed, 
when  Mr.  Somers  and  other  great  men  declared  that  no  person 
had  a  right  to  the  crown  independent  of  the  consent  of  the  two 
Houses,  would  it  have  been  thought  either  fair  or  decent  for  any 
member  of  either  House  to  have  pronounced  Mr.  Somers  a  personal 
competitor  of  William  the  Third  ?  " 

The  question  of  abstract  right  became  merged  in  the  more 
practical  question  of  what  powers  should  be  confided  to  the  prince 
of  Wales  as  Regent.  The  views  of  Mr.  Fox  on  this  point  were 
extreme.  On  the  1 5th  of  December  he  wrote  to  a  friend  in  con- 
fidence, "  I  am  afraid  they  will  get  up  some  cry  against  the  prince 
for  grasping,  as  they  call  it,  at  too  much  power ;  but  I  am  sure  I 
cannot  in  conscience  advise  him  to  give  up  anything  that  is  really 
necessary  to  his  government ;  or,  indeed,  to  claim  anything  else  as 
Regent  but  the  full  power  of  a  king,  to  which  he  is  certainly  en- 
titled." f  Mr.  Pitt,  on  the  other  hand,  brought  forward  proposi- 
tions to  prohibit  the  Regent  from  creating  peers  ;  from  disposing 
of  the  king's  real  or  personal  property  ;  and  from  granting  offices 
except  during  pleasure  °,  and  that  the  queen  should  have  the  cus- 
tody of  his  majesty's  person.  There  was  a  doubt  whether  the 

*  "  Parliamentary  History,"  vol.  xxvii.  col.  707. 
t  "Correspondence  of  Fox,"  vol.  ii.  p.  300. 


PARLIAMENTARY   CONFLICT   ON   THE   REGENCY   BILL.      461 

Prince  would  not  refuse  the  Regency,  under  these  restrictions. 
But  that  imprudence  was  not  added  to  the  other  grave  errors  of 
his  friends.  Burke  had  shocked  the  loyalty  of  all  men,  by  saying 
that  the  king  had  been  hurled  from  the  throne  by  the  decree  of 
the  Almighty.  Sheridan  maintained  that  the  prince  had  shown 
great  moderation  in  not  at  once  assuming  the  title  and  powers  of 
Regent,  and  thus  disgusted  those  who  possessed  any  knowledge 
of  the  principles  of  the  English  constitution.  There  was  such  an 
evident  avidity  to  seize  upon  power  in  the  prince  and  his  friends — 
there  was  such  a  distrust  of  his  character,  and  such  a  dread  of  be- 
holding a  court  polluted  with  the  abominations  of  gaming  and  riot 
— that  the  national  sympathy  was  almost  wholly  with  'Pitt,  who 
laboured  all  along  in  the  resolution  that  if  his  sovereign  should  be 
restored,  he  should  not  find  everything  changed.  He  knew  that 
his  own  chances  of  power  under  the  Regency  were  forfeited  by 
the  course  the  had  adopted.  He  would  "  take  his  blue  bag,  and 
return  to  the  bar."  *  Fox  appears  to  have  acted  on  the  conviction 
that  the  chance  of  the  king's  recovery  was  very  small  indeed.  The 
Regency  Bill  had  passed  the  Commons  on  the  I2th  of  February. 
But  in  the  middle  of  the  month  it  was  known  that  a  great  amend- 
ment had  taken  place  in  the  king's  condition.  On  the  23rd,  Mr. 
Pitt  received  a  letter,  "  written  in  his  majesty's  own  hand,  couched 
in  the  warmest  terms,  thanking  him  for  his  unshaken  attachment  to 
his  interests,  and  desiring  to  see  him  the  next  day."  j-  On  the 
25th,  the  issue  of  bulletins  by  the  royal  physicians  was  discontin- 
ued. On  the  roth  of  March,  the  commissioners  who  had  been  ap- 
pointed by  former  letters  patent  to  open  the  parliament,  by  another 
commission  declared  farther  causes  for  holding  the  same  ;  and  pro- 
ceeded to  state  to  both  Houses  that  his  majesty,  being  by  the  bless- 
ing of  Providence  recovered  from  his  indisposition,  and  enabled  to 
attend  to  public  affairs,conveyed  through  them  his  warmest  acknowl- 
edgments for  the  additional  proofs  they  had  given  of  affectionate 
attachment  to  his  person.  The  other  subjects  of  a  royal  speech 
on  opening  parliament  were  then  detailed. 

Pitt  had  won  his  second  great  victory.  In  1 784.  against  odds 
almost  incalculable,  he  had  defeated  the  Coalition  with  almost  the 
unanimous  support  of  the  people.  He  had  employed  his  unassail- 
able tenure  of  power  in  carrying  forward  the  resources  of  national 
prosperity  by  a  series  of  measures  conceived,  not  in  the  spirit  of 
party,  but  with  a  large  comprehension  of  what  was  essential  to  the 
public  good.  Another  great  trial  came.  He  had  to  conduct  an- 

*  "  Diaries,  &c.,  of  George  Rose,"  vol-  i.  p.  96. 

t  Grenville,  in  "Court  of  George  III.,"  vol.  ij.  p.  «$• 


462  HISTORY   OF   ENGLAND. 

other  conflict,  full  of  danger  and  difficulty,  in  which,  fighting  for 
his  sovereign,  he  had  in  the  same  manner  the  support  of  the  na- 
tion. Major  Cartwright,  so  well  known  for  his  subsequent  endeav- 
ours to  promote  a  Reform  in  Parliament,  wrote  to  Wilberforce : 
"  I  very  much  fear  that  the  king's  present  derangement  is  likely  to 
produce  other  derangements  not  for  the  public  benefit.  I  hope  we 
are  not  to  be  sold  to  the  Coalition  faction."  *  When  the  battle 
was  over,  George  the  Third  wrote  to  his  persevering  minister  that 
"  his  constant  attachment  to  my  interest,  and  that  of  the  public 
which  are  inseparable,  must  ever  place  him  in  the  most  advan- 
tageous light."  f  On  the  23rd  of  April,  a  public  thanksgiving  was 
appointed  for  the  king's  recovery.  His  majesty  went  to  St.  Paul's, 
accompanied  by  both  Houses  of  Parliament,  to  return  his  own 
thanksgivings.  The  day  was  observed  throughout  the  kingdom. 
Illuminations  were  never  so  general ;  joy  was  never  so  heartfelt. 
The  minister,  still  only  in  his  twenty-ninth  year,  had  reached  the 
pinnacle  of  power  and  popularity. 

*  "  Life  of  Wilberforce,"  vol.  i.  p.  100.  t  Rose—"  Diaries,  &c.,"  p.  97. 


SYMPTOMS   OF   GREAT  CHANGES   IN    FRANCE.  463 


CHAPTER  XXV. 

Symptoms  of  great  changes  in  France.— Constant  financial  difficulties General  view  of 

the  French  social  system.— Expectations  of  a  Revolution.— The  Parliament  of  Paris- 
Meeting  of  the  States-General.— The  Three  Orders.— The  Tiers  Etat  demand  that  all 
the  Orders  shall  unite. — Excitement  in  Paris,  during  this  contest. — Tiers  Etat  assume 
the  title  of  the  National  Assembly. — Their  meeting  in  a  Tennis  Court.— The  Royal 
Sitting.— Open  resistance  of  the  Tiers  Etat  to  the  king's  orders.— The  king  yields.— 
Dismissal  of  Necker.— Destruction  of  the  Bastile.— March  to  Versailles  of  a  Parisian 
mob. — The  Royal  Family  and  National  Assembly,  removed  to  Paris. 

ON  the  nth  of  July,  1788,  the  king,  at  the  close  of  the  Session 
of  Parliament,  said :  "  The  general  state  of  Europe,  and  the  as- 
surances which  I  receive  from  foreign  powers,  afford  me  every 
reason  to  expect  that  my  subjects  will  continue  to  enjoy  the  bles- 
sings of  peace."  The  differences  with  France  on  the  subject  of  the 
United  Provinces  had  been  adjusted.  On  the  6th  of  September, 
Mr.  Pitt  exultingly  wrote  to  the  marquis  of  Stafford,  "  The  state 
of  France,  whatever  else  it  may  produce,  seems  to  promise  us 
more  than  ever  a  considerable  respite  from  any  dangerous  pro- 
jects." *  The  "  state  of  France  "  was  that  of  a  country  in  which 
the  disordered  condition  of  its  finances  appeared  to  render  any  new 
disturbances  of  Europe,  from  the  ambition  of  the  government  and 
the  restlessness  of  the  people,  something  approaching  to  an  im- 
possibility. The  "  whatever  else  it  might  produce  "  was  a  vague 
and  remote  danger.  Yet  in  September,  1788,  there  were  symp- 
toms of  impending  changes,  that,  with  a  full  knowledge  of  the 
causes  operating  to  produce  them,  might  have  suggested  to  the  far- 
seeing  eye  of  that  statesmanship  that  looked  beyond  the  formal  re- 
lations of  established  governments,  some  real  cause  for  disquiet. 
Since  the  peace  of  1783,  there  had  been  constant  and  increasing 
deficiency  of  revenue  in  France.  The  area  of  taxation  was  limited 
by  the  manifold  exemptions  from  bearing  a  due  proportion  of  the 
public  burthens,  which  Turgot,  in  1776,  had  vainly  endeavoured  to 
abolish.  He  was  dismissed,  as  the  result  of  his  attempts  to  impose 
taxes  upon  the  noblesse  and  the  clergy.  Necker  is  summoned  to  fill 
the  great  post  of  Controller-general  of  Finance.  He  carries  France 
through  the  American  war  by  various  temporary  expedients ;  but 
there  is  still  a  deficit.  He  proposes  some  solid  measures,  and  is  dis- 

*  "  Diaries,  &c.,  of  George  Rose,"  vol.  i.  p.  8j. 


464  HISTORY   OF    ENGLAND. 

missed  in  May,  1781.  The  war  comes  to  an  end.  Englishmen  floclc 
to  Paris  in  1782,  and  there,  wondrous  disclosure  !  are  "struck  with 
surprise  at  the  freedom  of  conversation  on  general  liberty,  even 
within  the  walls  of  the  king's  palace."  *  Thus  was  George  Rose 
impressed.  He  writes  in  his  Diary — "  On  a  Sunday  morning, 
while  we  were  waiting  in  an  outer  room  to  see  the  king  pass  in 
state  to  the  chapel  of  Versailles,  where  several  of  the  great  officers 
were,  there  was  a  discussion  almost  as  free  as  I  have  heard  in  the 
House  of  Commons,  in  which  Monsieur  Chauvelin  was  the  loudest, 
who  was  in  some  employment  about  the  person  of  the  king,  for  he 
dropped  on  his  knee,  and  gave  his  majesty  a  cambric  handkerchief 
as  he  passed  through  the  room."  Pitt,  accompanied  by  Wilberforce 
and  another  friend,  went  to  France  in  1783.  He  inquired  par- 
ticularly into  the  political  institutions  of  the  French,  and  in  a  con- 
versation with  Abbe  de  Lageard,  "a  man  of  family  and  fortune,"  he 
said  to  him,  "  You  have  not  political  liberty,  but  for  civil  liberty  you 
have  more  than  you  believe  you  have."f  There  were  things  below 
the  surface  that  Pitt  did  not  see.  Wilberforce  records  of  Pitt,  that 
"it  was  the  singular  position  occupied  by  La  Fayette  which  most  of 
all  attracted  his  attention  :  he  seemed  to  be  the  representative  of  the 
democracy  in  the  very  presence  of  the  monarch ;  the  tribune  in- 
truding with  his  veto  within  the  chamber  of  the  patrician  order.'*  J 
Theoretical  democracy  was  in  fashion  amongst  the  patrician  order. 
They  had  been  talking  about  abstract  rights,  and  the  perfectibility 
of  society,  in  their  Parisian  salons,  without  a  thought  of  the  hope- 
less condition  of  the  miserable  peasantry  that  were  ground  into  the 
most  abject  poverty  by  their  seignorial  rights.  They  had  no  public 
duties  to  fulfil ;  they  were  utterly  isolated  from  the  millions  of 
whom  they  ought  to  have  been  the  friends  and  protectors.  The 
aristocracy  received  the  doctrines  of  the  political  philosophers  as  if 
they  were  mere  speculative  opinions  that  would  have  no  practical 
effects,  and  might  be  advocated  as  an  indulgence  of  elegant  sen- 
timent which  manifested  their  superiority  to  selfish  prejudices. 
"  The  nobles,  shared  as  a  pleasant  pastime  in  these  discussions, 
and  quietly  enjoyed  their  immunities  and  privileges  whilst  they 
serenely  discussed  the  absurdity  of  all  established  customs.  .  . 
Not  the  barest  notion  of  a  violent  revolution  ever  entered  into  the 
minds  of  the  generation  which  witnessed  it."  §  We  need  feel  no 
surprise  that  the  sagacious  English  minister  felt  no  fear  of  the 
gathering  clouds  which  foreboded  a  storm.  Other  Controllers  of 

*  "Diaries,  &c.,  of  George  Rose,"  vol.  i.  p.  41. 

t  "  Life  of  Wilberforce,"  vol.  i.  p.  38.  +  Ibid.,  p.  42. 

§  Tocqueville — "  France  before  the  Revolution,"  p.  361. 


GENERAL   VIEW   OF   THE    FRENCH   SOCIAL   SYSTEM.        465 

Finance  succeeded  Necker,  with  indifferent  success.  In  1783, 
Calonne  took  the  onerous  post.  He  got  on  for  three  years  by  loan 
upon  loan,  the  court  squandering  without  stint ;  the  people  excited 
by  scandalous  stories  against  the  queen,  with  little  foundation ;  a 
general  ferment  in  all  political  circles.  Calonne  can  do  no  more 
with  the  stock-jobbers,  and  he  resolves  upon  a  convocation  of 
Notables,  influential  men  from  all  districts  of  France,  to  devise 
new  plans  of  taxation.  Such  an  assembly  had  not  been  heard  of 
for  a  hundred  and  sixty  years.  Mr.  Jefferson,  the  American  am- 
bassador at  Paris,  announces  this  fact  to  his  government.  He 
saw  its  significance,  writing,  in  a  private  letter,  "this  event,  which 
will  hardly  excite  any  attention  in  America,  is  deemed  here  the 
most  important  one  which  has  taken  place  in  their  civil  line  during 
the  present  century."  *  This  body  met  towards  the  end  of  Feb- 
ruary, 1 787.  Calonne  shows  his  terrible  deficit ;  he  proposes  a 
new  land-tax,  from  which  no  proprietors, — neither  noblesse,  nor 
clergy,  nor  any  other  privileged  class, — shall  be  exempt.  The 
majority  of  the  Notables  was  composed  of  these  privileged  classes. 
They  would  have  nothing  to  do  with  the  scheme  of  Calonne  ;  and 
the  Controller,  who  had  hoped  for  more  effectual  control  over  an 
enormous  deficit  than  the  worn-out  system  of  borrowing,  is  dis- 
missed to  make  way  for  others  who  may  be  able  to  manage  more 
adroitly. 

At  this  period  an  Englishman  visited  France,  who  could  ob- 
serve more  accurately,  and  reason  more  acutely,  than  diplomatists 
who  moved  in  a  narrow  circle.  Arthur  Young  travelled  over 
various  parts  of  that  kingdom  in  1787,  1788,  and  1789.  M.  Toc- 
queville  speaks  of  Young's  "  Travels,"  published  in  1792,  as  "  one 
of  the  most  instructive  works  which  exist  on  the  former  state  of 
society  in  France."  f  Let  us  see  how  this  man  of  large  experi- 
ence, who  had  uniformly  regarded  the  prosperous  condition  of  the 
labourers  as  an  essential  concomitant  of  the  prosperity  of  the 
farmers,  describes  the  French  peasantry.  He  proceeds  on  his 
journey  south  from  Paris  to  Orleans,  and  having  crossed  the  Loire 
finds  that  the  cultivators  are  metayers—m&n  who  hire  the  land 
without  ability  to  stock  it,  the  proprietor  finding  cattle  and  seed 
and  the  tenant  labour,  and  dividing  the  scanty  produce.  As  he 
goes  on  he  becomes  excited  at  the  wretched  management  and  the 
miserable  dwellings,  in  a  country  highly  improveable— "  the  prop- 
erty, perhaps,  of  some  of  those  glittering  beings  who  figured  in 
the  procession  the  other  day  at  Versailles.  Heaven  grant  me 

*  Tucker—"  Life  of  Jefferson,"  vol.  i.  p.  253- 
t  "  France  before  the  Revolution,"  p.  179. 

VOL.  VI.— 30 


4.66  HISTORY   :,F   ENGLAND. 

patience  while  I  see  a  country  thus  neglected,  and  forgive  me  the 
oaths  I  swear  at  the  absence  and  ignorance  of  the  possessors."  * 
Having  passed  the  Dordogne,  he  finds  all  the  girls  and  women 
without  shoes  or  stockings;  and  "the  ploughmen  at  their  work 
have  neither  sabots  nor  feet  to  their  stockings."  Everywhere, 
however,  the  roads  are  magnificent — in  Languedoc  "  stupendous 
works  " — "  superb  even  to  a  folly  " — but  roads  almost  without 
traffic.  There  were  two  modes  of  executing  these  noble  cause- 
ways, carried  across  valleys,  and  through  levelled  hills.  They 
were  either  constructed  by  the  forced  labour  of  the  peasantry, 
called  the  corvte ;  or  by  assessment  of  the  proprietors,  under 
which  the  lands  held  by  a  noble  tenure  were  eased,  and  those  held 
by  a  base  tenure  were  proportionably  burthened.  The  king  of 
France,  during  the  administration  of  Turgot,  tried  to  abolish  the 
system  of  compulsory  labour.  The  decree  of  this  benevolent 
sovereign — who  truly  said,  "  I  and  Turgot  are  the  only  friends  of 
the  people  " — contains  this  avowal :  "  With  the  exception  of  a 
small  number  of  provinces,  almost  all  the  roads  throughout  the 
kingdom  have  been  made  by  the  gratuitous  labour  of  the  poorest 
part  of  our  subjects  ....  By  forcing  the  poor  to  keep  them  up 
unaided,  and  by  compelling  them  to  give  their  time  and  labour 
without  remuneration,  they  are  deprived  of  their  sole  resource 
against  want  and  hunger,  because  they  are  made  to  labour  for  the 
profit  of  the  rich."  In  spite  of  the  decree,  the  system  of  compul- 
sory labour  was  re-established  in  a  few  months.  We  have  a  strik- 
ing picture  of  the  operation  of  the  corvee,  in  a  description  by  M. 
Grosley,  of  a  scene  at  a  village  near  Langres.  Sixty  or  eighty 
peasants  arrive  at  night  at  this  village,  summoned  from  distant 
quarters,  to  begin  next  day  a  grand  corvee  upon  the  road.  They 
could  not  get  their  carts  and  oxen  over  the  mountains  ;  they  must 
pay  a  fine  or  go  to  prison ;  their  feet  were  cut  by  the  flinty  by- 
ways ;  they  were  hungry.  The  little  money  they  had  was  nearly 
'  exhausted  by  providing  for  the  inexorable  inspector.  The  traveller, 
an  Englishman,  who  told  Grosley  the  story,  paid  for  the  supper  of 
twenty  of  these  poor  people,  which  procured  him  a  thousand  bless- 
ings. They  were  to  go  to  work  the  next  day  without  their  teams. f 
And  yet,  with  such  oppression,  the  French  peasantry  were  not 
serfs,  as  in  most  of  the  German  states.  Many  were  even  small 
proprietors  of  land.  That  subdivision  of  landed  property,  which 
some  imagine  to  have  been  caused  by  the  Revolution,  existed  to  a 
large  extent  before  the  Revolution.  Young  was  greatly  surprised 
to  find  a  state  of  things  so  different  from  that  generally  prevailing 

*  "Travels  in  France,"  p.  12.        t  "  Observations  on  England,"  vol.  ii.  p.  16. 


GENERAL   VIEW   OF   THE   FRENCH    SOCIAL   SYSTEM.        467 

in  England.  He  averred  that  half  the  soil  belonged  to  these  small 
proprietors.  In  the  country  of  Bearne,  in  a  ride  of  twelve  miles 
from  Pau  to  Moneng,  he  saw  pretty  cottages,  neat  gardens,  and 
every  appearance  of  comfort.  The  land  "  is  all  in  the  hands  of 
little  proprietors,  without  the  farms  being  so  small  as  to  occasion 
a  vicious  and  miserable  population."  *  But  this  was  an  excep- 
tional case.  "  All  these  small  landowners  were,  in  reality,  ill  at 
ease  in  the  cultivation  of  their  property,  and  had  to  bear  many 
charges  or  easements  on  the  land  which  they  could  not  shake 
off."  f  The  ancient  seignorial  rights  were  the  most  oppressive  ; 
but  the  seigneur  was  not  the  local  administrator.  Neither  did  he 
select  the  parochial  officers  who  exacted  the  various  payments  and 
services  connected  with  the  land.  All  the  local  officers  were  under 
the  government  and  control  of  the  central  power.  "  The  seigneur 
was  in  fact  no  longer  anything  but  an  inhabitant  of  the  parish, 
separated  by  his  own  immunities  and  privileges  from  all  the 
other  inhabitants."  The  nobility  had  ceased  to  have  any  political 
power ;  they  had  no  concern  in  maintaining  public  order  or  ad- 
ministering justice.  Many  had  sold  their  land  in  small  patches,  and 
lived  only  on  seignorial  rights  and  rent-charges.  The  greater  num- 
ber did  not  dwell  among  the  people  who  were  the  means  of  their 
support.  The  peasant  only  knew  the  nobleman  as  a  living  person, 
or  an  abstract  power,  who  was  exempt  from  the  taxes  which  the 
plebeian  paid ;  who  had  the  exclusive  right  of  sporting ;  who 
compelled  him  to  grind  his  corn  in  the  lord's  mill,  and  to  crush  his 
grapes  in  the  lord's  wine  press  ;  who  made  him  pay  toll  when  he 
crossed  a  river,  and  tolled  him  in  selling  his  corn  in  the  public 
market ;  whcse  perpetual  quit-rents,  which  could  not  be  redeemed, 
were  always  an  incumbrance  on  his  little  property.  Arthur  Young 
met  with  a  poor  woman  who  complained  of  the  times,  and  said 
that  it  was  a  sad  country.  Her  husband  had  a  morsel  of  land,  one 
cow,  and  a  poor  little  horse.  They  had  to  pay  a  quantity  of  wheat 
to  one  seigneur,  and  a  larger  quantity  to  another  seigneur,  "  be- 
sides very  heavy  failles  and  other  taxes."  The  poor  woman  was 
only  twenty-eight  years  of  age,  but  she  might,  "  at  no  great  dis- 
tance, have  been  taken  for  sixty  or  seventy,  her  figure  was  so  bent, 
and  her  face  so  furrowed  and  hardened  by  labour."  She  said  that 
she  heard  that  something  was  to  be  done  by  some  great  folks  for 
such  poor  ones,  but  she  did  not  know  by  whom  or  how — but  God 
send  us  better,  for  "  les  tallies  et  les  droits  nous  ecrasenl."  J  There 
was  no  personal  sympathy  of  the  higher  classes  to  ameliorate  the 

*  "Travels  in  France,"  p.  42.  t  Tocqueville,  p.  45. 

t  "  Travels  in  France,"  p.  134. 


468  HISTORY   OF   ENGLAND. 

burthens  of  their  poor  dependents.  They  knew  them  only  as 
toilers  from  whom  revenue  was  to  be  extracted.  None  of  the 
gentry  remained  in  the  rural  districts  but  such  as  were  too  poor  to 
leave  them.  "  Being  no  longer  in  the  position  of  a  chief,  they  had 
not  the  same  interest  as  of  old,  to  attend  to,  or  assist,  or  direct,  the 
village  population ;  and,  on  the  other  hand,  not  being  subject  to 
the  same  burthens,  they  could  neither  feel  much  sympathy  for 
poverty  which  they  did  not  share,  nor  for  grievances  to  which 
they  were  not  exposed."  * 

In  the  rural  districts,  as  well  as  in  the  provincial  towns,  the 
real  administrative  functions  had  gone  out  of  the  hands  of  in- 
dividuals or  bodies  having  a  natural  interest  in  local  affairs,  and 
qualified  to  direct  them  by  local  influence  and  intelligence,  to  be 
wielded  by  a  vast  army  of  functionaries  all  deriving  their  existence 
from  a  central  authority  in  the  capital.  The  King's  Council  was 
an  administrative  and  legislative  power  that  decided  upon  all 
affairs  of  a  public  nature,  that  prepared  laws,  that  fixed  taxes,  to 
which  every  question  was  referred,  the  centre  from  which  was 
derived  the  movement  that  set  everything  in  motion.  The  in- 
dividuals composing  this  Council  were  obscure ;  its  power  ap- 
peared to  be  that  of  the  throne.  The  Controller-general  was  the 
head  of  this  Council.  Its  instruments  were  the  Intendants  of 
provinces  ;  who  had  under  them  each  a  sub-delegate.  These  men 
were  the  real  governors  of  France.  The  taxes,  whether  the 
ancient  tax  of  the  tattle,  or  taxes  of  more  recent  date,  were  wholly 
under  their  regulation.  The  quota  of  men  to  serve  in  the  militia 
for  each  parish  was  prescribed  by  the  Intendant.  All  the  public 
works,  all  the  roads,  highways  and  by-ways,  kept  up  out  of  the 
public  revenu%  were  under  the  care  of  the  Council,  the  Intendant, 
and  the  Sub-delegate.  The  marechaussee,  or  mounted  police, 
distributed  throughout  the  whole  kingdom,  were  under  the  man- 
agement of  the  Intendants.  There  was  no  provision  for  the  Poor 
in  the  rural  districts.  Under  circumstances  of  great  pressure,  the 
Intendant  distributed  corn  or  rice,  and  sometimes  bestowed  alms 
in  the  form  of  work  at  low  wages.  In  the  towns  "  a  few  families 
managed  all  the  public  business  for  their  own  private  purposes, 
removed  from  the  eye  of  the  public,  and  with  no  public  responsi- 
bility." But  the  Council  came  in,  and  the  government,  through 
the  Intendant  with  his  subordinate  officers,  "had  a  finger  in  all 
the  concerns  of  every  town,  the  least  as  well  as  the  greatest." 
There  were  semblances  of  local  freedom  in  the  system  of  parochial 
government;  but,  "compared  with  the  total  impotence  which  was 

*  Tocqueville,  p.  223. 


GENERAL  VIEW   OF   THE   FRENCH    SOCIAL   SYSTEM.        469 

connected  with  them,  they  afford  an  example,  in  miniature,  of  the 
combination  of  the  most  absolute  government  with  some  of  the 
forms  of  extreme  democracy."  The  precise  details  of  the  com- 
plicated system  of  Centralization  presented  by  M.  Tocqueville,  are 
thus  summed  up  :  u  Under  the  social  condition  of  France  anterior 
to  the  Revolution  of  1789,  as  well  as  at  the  present  day,  there  was 
no  city,  town,  borough,  village,  or  hamlet,  in  the  kingdom — there 
was  neither  hospital,  church  fabric,  religious  house,  nor  college — 
which  could  have  an  independent  will  in  the  management  of  its 
private  affairs,  or  which  could  administer  its  own  property  accord- 
ing to  its  own  choice."*  The  system  of  Centralization  had  so 
completely  pervaded  France  that  "  no  one  imagined  that  any  im- 
portant affair  could  be  properly  carried  out  without  the  interven- 
tion of  the  state."  The  people  had  lost  all  power  of  managing 
their  own  affairs.  "  The  French  government,"  says  M.  Tocque- 
ville, "having  thus  assumed  the  place  of  Providence,  it  was 
natural  that  every  one  should  invoke  its  aid  in  his  individual 
necessities."  May  we  not  add  that  it  was  equally  natural  that 
when  no  help  came  from  government  at  a  season  of  calamity,  the 
people  should  blaspheme  the  Providence  to  which  they  cried  in 
vain,  and  in  their  rage  break  their  false  idols  in  pieces  ? 

The  pride  of  birth  which  made  the  aristocracy  of  France  a 
caste,  separating  them  wholly  from  the  middle  classes,  was  carried 
forward  into  a  more  hateful  separation  of  the  middle  classes  of  the 
towns  from  those  termed  the  common  people.  The  great  passion 
of  the  burgher  was  to  become  a  public  functionary.  He  could  buy 
a  place  connected  with  some  real  or  pretended  duty  arising  out  of 
the  administrative  system  of  Centralization.  Every  man  wanted  to 
be  something  "  by  command  of  the  king."  But  the  honour  was  not 
altogether  barren.  The  holders  of  place  were  exempted,  wholly  or 
in  part,  from  public  burthens.  They  quarrelled  amongst  themselves ; 
but  they  were  agreed  in  one  principle — to  grind  the  people  below 
them.  "  Most  of  the  local  burthens  which  they  imposed  were  so 
contrived  as  to  press  mr  st  heavily  on  the  lower  classes."  f  The 
isolation  of  classes  had  gradually  proceeded  to  this  height  under  that 
principle  of  the  French  monarchy  which  sought  to  govern  its  subjects 
by  dividing  them.  The  separate  parts  of  the  social  fabric  had  no 
coherence.  The  whole  fell  to  pieces  when  it  was  attempted  to  repair 
the  rotten  edifice.  "  The  nation,"  said  Turgot,  in  a  Report  to  the 
king,  "  is  a  community  consisting  of  different  orders  ill-compacted 
together,  and  of  a  people  whose  members  have  very  few  ties  between 

*  See  the  details  of  Book  II.,  chapters  3  and  3-  t  Tocqueville,  p.  170. 


470  HISTORY   OF    ENGLAND. 

themselves,  so  that  every  man  is  exclusively  engrossed  by  his  per- 
sonal interest.  Nowhere  is  any  common  interest  discernible.  The 
villages,  the  towns,  have  not  any  stronger  mutual  relations  than  the 
districts  to  which  they  belong."  To  complete  this  remarkable 
isolation,  Paris  preponderated  over  the  whole  kingdom.  It  was 
the  seat  of  all  mental  activity ;  it  was  the  centre  of  all  political 
action.  "  Circulation  is  stagnant  in  France,"  says  Young  in  1787. 
In  1789,  whilst  the  mightiest  events  were  passing  in  Paris,  he 
found  the  people  of  Strasbourg,  and  other  towns,  perfectly  ignorant 
of  circumstances  that  most  intimately  concerned  them.  "  That  uni- 
versal circulation  of  intelligence,  which  in  England  transmits  the  least 
vibration  of  feeling  or  alarm,  with  electric  sensibility,  from  one  end 
of  the  kingdom  to  another,  and  which  unites  in  bonds  of  connec- 
tion men  of  similar  interests  and  situations,  has  no  existence  in 
France."* 

Arthur  Young  appears  to  have  been  almost  the  only  observer 
amongst  Englishmen  who,  after  the  dismissal  of  Calonne  in  1 787, 
thought  that  a  Revolution  was  approaching.  Lomenie  de  Brienne, 
archbishop  of  Toulouse,  had  become  Controller-general.  Young 
dined  with  a  party  whose  conversation  was  entirely  political.  "  One 
opinion  pervaded  the  whole  company,  that  they  are  on  the  eve  of 
some  great  revolution  in  the  government;  that  everything  points  to 
it " — financial  confusion ;  no  minister  to  propose  anything  but 
palliatives  ;  a  prince  on  the  throne  with  excellent  dispositions,  but 
wanting  in  mental  resources  ;  a  court  buried  in  pleasure  and  dis- 
sipation, and  adding  to  the  public  distress  ;  a  great  ferment  amongst 
all  ranks  of  men,  "  who  are  eager  for  some  change,  without  know- 
ing what  to  look  to,  or  to  hope  for  ;  and  a  strong  leaven  of  liberty, 
increasing  every  hour  since  the  American  revolution."  He  adds, 
"  all  agree  that  the  States  of  the  kingdom  cannot  assemble  without 
more  liberty  being  the  consequence  ;  but  I  meet  with  so  few  men 
that  have  any  just  ideas  of  freedom,  that  I  question  much  the 
species  of  this  new  liberty  that  is  to  arise."  f 

Lomenie  de  Brienne  has  dismissed  the  Notables,  who  were  begin- 
ning to  be  troublesome,  some  uttering  strange  words  about  liberty, 
a  national  assembly,  and  other  unwonted  sounds.  They  had  recom- 
mended some  practical  reforms,  such  as  the  formation  of  Provincial 
Assemblies  ;  the  suppression  of  Corvees ;  a  modification  of  Gabelle. 
These  measures  were  announced  in  edicts.  But  the  deficit  presses. 
New  taxes  must  be  imposed  by  edicts.  These,  however,  must  be 
registered  by  the  Parlement  of  Paris.  Very  different  from  a 
British  Parliament  was  this  ancient  institution.  It  was  originally 
*  "  Travels,"  p.  147.  t  Ibid.,  p.  66. 


THE   PARLIAMENT  OF   PARIS.  471 

only  a  court  of  justice ;  and  some  of  the  provinces  had  similar 
courts,  with  local  jurisdiction.  The  members  of  these  Parlements 
were  formerly  appointed  by  the  king,  and  were  removeable  at  his 
will.  The  appointments  were  afterwards  sold,  and  those  who 
bought  the  places  were  considered  to  hold  them  for  life.  The 
Parlements  thus  gradually  acquired  a  semblance  of  dependence, 
and  did  not  always  register  the  royal  edicts  without  inquiry.  To- 
wards the  close  of  the  reign  of  Louis  XV.  the  Parlement  of  Paris, 
refusing  to  register  some  royal  edicts,  was  suppressed,  as  well  as 
some  of  the  provincial  Parlements.  They  were  restored  to  their 
functions,  by  Louis  XVI.,  in  1774.  In  1785  the  Parlement  of 
Paris  refused  to  register  an  edict  for  a  large  loan ;  but  the  peremp- 
tory command  of  the  king  overpowered  them.  Calonne  had  then 
recourse  to  an  Assembly  of  Notables,  which  was  dissolved  in  1787, 
as  we  have  seen.  One  of  the  new  taxes  proposed  by  Lomenie 
was  a  project  of  raising  money  by  stamps.  The  Parlement  of  Paris 
refused  to  register  the  edict,  unless  the  financial  accounts  were 
submitted  to  their  examination.  At  the  beginning  of  August,  they 
came  to  a  resolution  that  a  perpetual  tax,  such  as  that  required  to  be 
registered,  could  only  be  imposed  by  the  States-General.  Then 
commenced  a  collision  between  the  Crown  and  the  only  body  that 
stood  between  the  Crown  and  its  absolute  power.  According  to 
the  old  forms  of  the  monarchy,  a  Bed  of  Justice  was  to  be  held — a 
ceremony  in  which  the  Parlement  should  meet  the  king  face  to 
face,  and  hear  his  positive  commands  to  register  his  decrees.  On 
the  6th  of  August  this  command  is  given  at  Versailles.  The  Par- 
lement returns  to  Paris,  and  refuses  to  obey  the  solemn  mandate, 
even  though  it  issued  from  a  Bed  of  Justice.  The  refractory  Par- 
lement must  be  put  down.  The  members  are  banished  to  Troyes. 
Paris  is  in  a  state  of  furious  excitement.  Large  bodies  of  troops 
are  marched  into  the  city  to  suppress  the  growing  disposition  to- 
wards violence.  At  length  a  compromise  is  effected.  The  obnox- 
ious edicts  for  taxation  are  withdrawn  ;  and  another  is  proposed 
and  accepted,  which  recognized  equality  of  taxation  without  exemp- 
tions. The  Parlement  is  now  recalled  from  its  exile.  On  the  ipth 
of  November,  the  king  held  a  royal  sitting  (stance  royat)  when  he 
carried  to  the  Parlement  an  edict  for  a  succession  of  loans  for 
five  years,  amounting  to  nineteen  millions  sterling.  He  also  sub- 
mitted to  them  an  edict  for  the  relief  of  the  Protestants.  He  called 
upon  them  to  confine  their  functions  to  their  ancient  powers,  and 
to  show  an  example  of  loyalty  and  obedience.  Violent  discus- 
sions ensued,  in  which  the  duke  of  Orleans,  the  relative  of  the 
king,  took  part  against  the  Court.  The  king  departed,  after  a 


4/2  HISTORY   OF   ENGLAND. 

contest  of  nine  hours,  and  the  Parlement  declared  the  edicts  nuH 
and  void.  The  next  day  the  duke  was  banished  to  one  of  his 
country  seats ;  and  two  of  the  most  refractory  members  of  the  Par- 
lement, were  arrested  by  lettres  de  cachet.  Temporary  expedients 
for  raising  money  must  be  resorted  to,  till  something  could  be  done 
with  this  rebellious  Parlement.  Lome'nie  had  his  scheme  ready. 
It  was  to  establish  a  grand  Council  of  State,  to  be  called  "  La 
Cour  Pleniere,"  which  should  dispense  with  the  Parlement,  and 
yet  give  a  sanction  to  taxation  that  might  be  more  satisfactory  than 
the  mere  exercise  of  the  royal  authority.  The  plan  was  concocted 
in  secret ;  but  it  became  known,  and  produced  the  greatest  agitation 
in  the  Parlement  of  Paris.  Two  of  its  most  violent  opponents,  M. 
d'Espremenil  and  M.  de  Montsabert,  were  ordered  to  be  arrested. 
They  were  taken  into  custody  during  a  sitting  of  the  Parlement,  in 
which,  after  the  example  of  the  Commons  of  England,  when  Charles 
the  First  went  to  arrest  the  five  members,  not  one  of  the  Parle- 
ment would  point  out  the  persons  demanded  by  a  military  force. 
D'Espremenil  and  Montsabert  surrendered,  and  were  taken  to 
prison.  The  provincial  Parlements  were  now  in  a  state  of  revolt. 
The  people  were  furious  with  excitement.  The  day  after  the  arrest 
of  the  members,  the  king  held  another  Bed  of  Justice  at  Versailles, 
in  which  he  proposed  a  number  of  salutary  reforms  in  six  edicts,  which 
provided  for  the  more  rapid  administration  of  justice;  which  regulated 
the  proceedings  of  the  Parlement  of  Paris ;  which  put  all  criminal 
procedure  upon  a  footing  which  swept  away  many  odious  and  cruel 
abuses ;  which  established  "  La  Cour  Pleniere  " ;  which  provided 
for  local  courts  ;  and  which  suspended  the  proceeding  of  all  other 
courts.  These  reforms,  admirable  as  some  were,  were  rejected. 
The  edicts  became  waste  paper,  through  the  short-sightedness  of 
the  Parlement  and  the  violence  of  the  people.  A  visitation  of  Provi- 
dence then  became  the  cause  of  general  distress.  A  tremendous 
hailstorm,  on  the  I3th  of  July,  1788,  destroyed,  in  many  districts, 
the  crops  of  corn  and  the  vineyards.  The  ruin  was  almost  total 
for  sixty  leagues  round  Paris.  An  edict  was  issued  on  the  8th  of 
August,  that  the  States-General  should  be  assembled  in  May  of  the 
following  year.  The  royal  Treasury  was  becoming  empty,  and  no 
means  of  warding  off  the  pressure  of  the  demands  of  the  public 
creditors  but  by  a  measure  declaratory  of  insolvency.  The  Treas- 
ury payments  shall,  according  to  a  proclamation  of  the  i6th  of 
August,  henceforth  be  three-fifths  in  money  and  two-fifths  in  paper. 
The  alarm  was  universal.  The  Court  was  terrified.  There  was 
no  hope  but  in  the  recall  of  Necker,  to  become  Controller  of  the 
Finances.  Lomenie  was  dismissed,  with  the  solace  of  more  eccle- 


MEETING   OF   THE   STATES-GENERAL.  473 

siastical  preferments.  Paris  was  in  a  state  of  riot,  which  was  sup- 
pressed with  some  bloodshed.  But  hope  returned  with  the  presence 
of  Necker.  He  found  himself  a  financial  minister  without  finan- 
ces. Offers  of  loans  poured  in  upon  him.  The  funds  rose  thirty 
per  cent.  The  popular  cause  had  triumphed,  and  Necker  was  the 
minister  of  the  people.  Nothing  remained  to  do,  but  to  provide 
for  the  meeting  of  the  States-General.  An  Assembly  of  Notables 
was  again  convened.  They  recommended  that  each  of  the  three 
Estates,  the  Clergy,  the  Noblesse,  and  the  Tiers  Etat,  should  send 
three  hundred  members.  By  the  advice  of  Necker,  the  king  issued 
an  edict  that  the  Clergy  and  the  Noblesse  should  each  elect  three 
hundred  members,  and  the  Tiers  Etat  six  hundred.  The  States- 
General  were  to  assemble  on  the  4th  of  May,  1789.  The  elections 
began  in  January. 

On  the  morning  of  Monday,  the  4th  of  May,  the  streets  of  Ver- 
sailles were  filled  with  thousands  of  people,  to  gaze  upon  the  pro- 
cession of  the  Court  and  the  States-General  from  the  church  of  St. 
Louis,  where  all  had  assembled,  to  the  church  of  Notre-Dame, 
where  a  sermon  was  to  be  preached.  Two  hundred  and  seventy- 
five  years  had  passed  since  a  king  of  France  had  met  the  States- 
General.  As  if  to  mark  the  long  interval,  the  costume  of  the  States- 
Geheral  of  1614  was  prescribed.  The  clergy  went  first — the  bish- 
ops in  velvet  robes  and  rochets,  the  cures  in  their  plainer  dress. 
The  Noblesse  came  next,  in  embroidered  velvet  mantles  and  gold 
vests,  laced  cravats,  white  plumes  in  their  hats,  such  as  Henri  Qua- 
tre  wore.  The  Tiers  Etat  came  last,  in  plain  black  mantles,  white 
cravats,  and  unfeathered  hats.  Lastly,  came  the  king  beneath  a 
sumptuous  canopy,  with  the  queen,  the  princesses  and  high-born 
dames,  and  the  king's  brothers.  The  duke  of  Orleans  had  con- 
trived to  walk  in  the  last  rank  of  the  Nobles,  that  he  might  appear  to 
mingle  with  the  first  of  the  Commons.  The  marquis  de  Ferrieres 
had  painted  the  scene  with  the  most  gorgeous  tints — the  respect- 
ful silence  of  the  immense  crowd,  the  windows  filled  with  elegantly 
dressed  ladies,  the  joy  speaking  from  their  brilliant  eyes,  the  clap- 
ping of  hands,  the  sound  of  trumpets,  the  chant  of  the  priests, — rav- 
ishing picture  :  "  I  called  to  mind  the  words  of  the  prophet,  Daugh- 
ters of  Jerusalem,  your  king  advances  ;  take  your  nuptial  robes 
and  run  before  him :  tears  of  joy  flowed  from  my  eyes."*  The 
daughter  of  Necker  was  at  one  of  the  windows.  "  I  was  abandon- 
ing myself,"  she  says,  "  to  the  most  lively  hopes  at  seeing,  for  the 
first  time  in  France,  representatives  of  the  nation.  Madame  de 

*  "  Memoirs  de  Ferriires." 


474  HISTORY   OF   ENGLAND. 

Montmorin  said  to  me,  'You  are  wrong  in  rejoicing;  out  of  this 
there  will  come  great  disasters  for  France  and  for  us.'  "* 

The  next  day  the  States-General  was  opened.  A  large  hall  in 
the  avenue  of  the  palace  had  been  provided  for  the  assembly. 
This  Salle  des  Menus,  as  it  was  called,  was  of  sufficient  size  to 
contain  the  twelve  hundred  members,  with  galleries  for  spectators. 
There  was  a  platform  for  the  king  and  his  Court.  Louis — with 
Marie-Antoinette  by  his  side,  looking  pale  and  ill  at  ease — read  an 
address,  of  which  the  principal  subject  was  that  of  the  finances. 
When  the  reading  was  finished,  the  king  put  on  his  hat,  as  he  took 
his  seat  on  the  throne.  The  clergy  and  nobility,  also  put  on  their 
hats.  Some  of  the  Tiers  Etat  also  took  this  mode  of  asserting  their 
position,  and  there  was  great  confusion,  which  the  king  stopped 
by  taking  off  his  own  hat.  The  costume  of  the  Third  Estate 
was  the  same  as  in  1614,  but  the  sentiment  which  then  required 
them  to  kneel  in  the  presence  of  the  sovereign  was  gone.  The 
keeper  of  the  seals  made  a  speech  ;  and  so  did  Necker,  the  Con- 
troller-General of  the  Finances — a  speech  which  Arthur  Young  said 
was  such  "  as  you  would  expect  from  a  bankmg  clerk  of  some  abil- 
ity." The  difficult  question,  whether  the  three  estates  should  delib- 
erate and  vote  in  one  body,  or  in  separate  chambers,  was  not  touch- 
ed upon.  It  seemed  to  have  been  arranged  that,  contrary  to  the 
strong  opinion  that  had.  been  expressed  by  some  of  the  constituen- 
cies, the  discussions  and  the  votes  should  not  take  place  in  one 
common  assembly.  It  had  been  intended  that  four  chambers 
should  be  provided ;  one  for  the  solemn  meetings  of  the  three  or- 
ders together ;  and  for  each  distinct  order  a  separate  chamber.  By 
some  difference  between  the  Court  functionaries,  who  were  of  more 
importance  than  the  sovereign  or  his  ministers,  the  building  set 
apart  for  the  Commons  was  refused  to  be  given  up  by  the  adminis- 
tration of  the  stables.  The  Salle  des  Menus  was  therefore  occu- 
pied by  the  Third  Estate.  The  Clergy  and  the  Nobles  met  in 
their  appropriated  chambers,  and  proceeded  to  the  verification  of 
their  powers,  having  decided  to  do  so  by  the  votes  of  a  majority  in 
each  of  the  two  orders.  The  Commons  refused  to  proceed  to  a 
separate  verification  ;  and  for  five  weeks  this  contest  went  on,  but 
without  any  decisive  results,  of  speeches  and  resolutions. 

Milton  has  eloquently  described  the  intellectual  fervour  of  Lon- 
don in  the  early  days  of  the  Long  Parliament.  "'  The  shop  of  war 
hath  not  more  anvils  and  hammers  waking,  to  fashion  out  the 
plates  and  instruments  of  armed  justice,  in  defense  of  beleaguered 
truth,  than  there  be  pens  and  heals  then;,  ratting  by  their  studious 
*  Madame  de  Stasl — "  Considerations  sur  la  Revolution  " 


EXCITEMENT   OF    PARIS.  475 

lamps,  musing,  searching,  revolving  new  notions  and  ideas  where- 
with to  present,  as  with  their  homage  and  their  fealty,  the  approach- 
ing reformation."  *  But  in  Paris,  in  1789,  the  literary  activity  was 
of  a  very  different  character  from  that  of  London  in  1644.  There  was 
the  same  disputing  and  discoursing  upon  "  things  not  before  dis- 
coursed or  written  of ; "  but  in  London  "  the  study  of  highest  and 
most  important  matters  to  be  reformed  "  had  regard  to  the  differ- 
ences of  doctrine  rather  than  the  destruction  of  religion  ;  and  con- 
templated resistance  to  arbitrary  power  rather  than  the  overthrow 
of  all  lawful  authority.  During  the  first  month  of  the  meeting 
of  the  States-General,  Arthur  Young  was  in  Paris,  and  "  was  much 
in  company."  He  found  "  a  general  ignorance  of  the  principles  of 
government ;  a  strange  and  unaccountable  appeal,  on  one  side,  to 
ideal  and  visionary  rights  of  nature  ;  and,  on  the  other,  no  settled 
plan  that  shall  give  security  to  the  people  for  being  in  future  in  a 
much  better  situation  than  hitherto."  f  He  saw  the  booksellers' 
shops  filled  with  eager  crowds,  squeezing  from  the  door  to  the 
counter  to  buy  the  pamphlet  of  the  last  hour.  He  saw  the  coffee- 
houses in  the  Palais  Royal  not  only  crowded  within,  but  other 
crowds  without,  listening  to  orators  who,  from  chairs  or  tables,  ha- 
rangued each  his  audience.  The  pamphlets  and  the  orators  were 
admired,  exactly  in  the  proportion  in  which  they  attacked  Chris- 
tianity with  a  sort  of  rage,  without  any  attempt  to  substitute  any 
other  belief ;  and  proposed  to  the  French  people,  not  that  their 
affairs  should  be  better  conducted,  but  that  they  should  take  the 
conduct  of  them  into  their  own  hands — they  "  a  people  so  ill-pre- 
pared to  act  for  themselves,  that  they  could  not  undertake  a  uni- 
versal and  simultaneous  reform  without  a  universal  destruction."  ^ 
On  the  I4th  of  June,  Arthur  Young  repaired  to  the  Salle  des 
Menus  to  behold  what  was  to  him,  as  it  was  to  most  Englishmen, 
a  scene  eminently  interesting — "  the  spectacle  of  the  representatives 
of  twenty-five  millions  of  people,  just  emerging  from  the  evils  of 
two  hundred  years  of  arbitrary  power,  and  rising  to  the  blessings 
of  a  freer  constitution,  assembled  with  open  doors  under  the  eye 
of  the  public."  §  His  feelings  were  roused  ;  but  he  saw  how  the 
irregularities  of  the  proceedings  showed  the  representatives  of  the 
people  to  be  without  that  self-control,  in  the  absence  of  which  a 
deliberative  assembly  is  only  an  organized  mob.  The  spectators 
in  the  gallery  were  allowed  to  applaud  ;  a  hundred  members  were 
on  their  legs  at  one  time  ;  the  president,  Bailly,  absolutely  without 
the  means  of  keeping  order.  Specific  motions,  founded  on  distinct 

*  "  Liberty  of  unlicensed  Printing."  t  "  Travels  in  France,"  p.  105. 

J  Tocqueville,  p.  305.  5  "  Travels,"  p.  no. 


476  HISTORY   OF   ENGLAND. 

propositions,  were  drowned  in  abstract  declarations,  producing 
interminable  harangues.  Thus  had  the  Tiers  Etat  been  debating 
for  five  weeks.  But  with  all  their  mistakes  of  procedure  they  clung 
firmly  to  their  principle,  that  they  would  have  no  verification  of 
their  powers,  except  in  common  with  the  other  Orders.  The 
stronger  this  inertia  in  the  halls  of  the  States-General,  the  more 
active  was  the  public  feeling  without  doors.  Tumults  were  ex- 
pected. Clubs,  that  afterwards  became  memorable,  stimulated  the 
popular  agitation.  The  excessive  price  of  bread  had  already  pro- 
duced riots  in  the  provinces.  The  Court  is  alarmed.  At  length 
something  more  definite  than  the  orations  in  the  Palais  Royal  pro- 
duces a  terror  that  may  end  in  some  conflict  between  the  Orders 
amongst  themselves,  or  of  the  Crown  with  the  States-General. 
On  the  1 7th  of  June  it  was  resolved,  on  the  motion  of  the  Abbe* 
Sieyes,  that  the  Tiers  Etat  should  assume  the  title  of  "  The 
National  Assembly."  The  members  all  took  an  oath  to  discharge 
with  zeal  and  fidelity  the  duties  entrusted  to  their  care.  They 
passed  several  resolutions  on  the  subject  of  the  taxes  and  the 
dearness  of  provisions.  These  were  not  of  a  violent  character ; 
but  they  were  proofs  that  the  Commons  were  resolved  to  try  their 
own  strength.  The  Clergy,  on  the  iQth,  determined,  by  a  majority, 
that  the  definitive  verification  of  powers  should  be  made  in  the 
General  Assembly.  The  Nobility  voted  an  Address  to  the  king, 
in  which  they  protested  against  the  assumption  of  power  by  the 
Tiers  Etat.  On  the  2oth  of  June  it  was  proclaimed  in  the  streets 
of  Versailles,  that  a  royal  sitting  of  the  States-General  would  be 
held  on  the  22nd  ;  and  that  in  the  meantime  the  meetings  of  the 
three  Orders  were  suspended.  At  eight  o'clock  in  the  morning, 
Bailly,  the  president,  and  the  two  secretaries,  were  at  the  door  of 
their  hall.  It  was  closed  against  them  by  military.  The  deputies 
began  to  collect  in  great  numbers  in  the  avenue  of  Versailles — all 
angry,  some  desperate.  But  they  soon  learn  -that  their  president, 
having  been  permitted  to  take  away  his  papers  from  the  Salle  des 
Menus,  has  taken  refuge  in  a  large  building,  the  Jeu  de  Paume 
(Tennis  Court),  in  the  Rue  St.  Francois.  Upon  the  proposition 
of  Mounier,  each  took  an  oath  never  to  separate  from  that  National 
Assembly,  until  the  constitution  of  the  kingdom  was  established. 
On  the  22nd  it  was  proclaimed  that  the  royal  sitting  was  adjourned 
till  the  following  day.  The  National  Assembly  could  not  meet  on 
the  22nd,  for  the  Jeu  de  Paume  was  occupied  by  the  princes  for 
their  tennis-play.  On  the  23rd  the  king  came  to  the  Salle  des 
Menus ;  and  one  of  the  secretaries  of  state  read  a  declaration  to 
the  effect  that  the  distinction  of  the  Three  Orders  should  be  main 


UNION   OF   THE  THREE   ORDERS.  477 

tained  in  its  integrity ;  but  that  they  might  meet  to  deliberate 
together  with  the  consent  of  the  king.  The  resolutions  of  the 
Tiers  Etat,  on  the  i;th  of  June,  were  cancelled.  Thirty-five 
articles  were  read,  detailing  the  intentions  of  the  king.  Some 
pointed  to  useful  reforms  ;  others  contemplated  a  strict  adherence 
to  established  things,  even  to  abuses.  The  king  closed  the  sitting 
in  a  speech,  wherein  he  rashly  declared,  that  if  the  Three  Orders 
could  not  agree  to  effect  what  he  proposed — "  I  alone  will  accom- 
plish the  good  of  my  people."  The  king  leaves  the  hall,  followed 
by  most  of  the  clergy,  and  all  the  nobles,  having  given  his  com- 
mand that  each  order  should  meet  in  its  distinct  place  on  the 
following  morning,  but  that  they  were  now  to  separate.  The 
Commons  stir  not.  They  look  at  each  other  in  gloomy  silence. 
De  Breze,  the  chief  usher  of  the  court,  enters  and  says,  "  Gentle- 
men, you  have  heard  the  king's  orders."  Bailly  said  to  the  members 
around  him,  "  I  think  that  the  assembled  nation  cannot  receive 
any  order."  Then  rose  Mirabeau,  the  man  of  the  most  commanding 
power  in  that  assembly,  and  thus  addressed  the  awe-struck  usher  : 
"  Yes,  sir ;  we  have  heard  what  the  king  was  advised  to  say  ;  and  you, 
who  cannot  be  the  organ  of  the  king  to  the  States-General — you, 
who  have  neither  place  nor  right  of  speech  here — you  are  not  the 
person  to  remind  us  of  what  he  has  said.  If  you  are  commis- 
sioned to  make  us  leave  this  place,  you  must  ask  for  orders  to  use 
force ;  for  we  will  only  quit  by  the  power  of  the  bayonet."*  Many 
speeches  were  made.  The  assembly  affirmed  that  they  persevered 
in  their  former  resolutions  ;  and  upon  the  proposition  of  Mirabeau 
it  was  declared  that  the  persons  of  the  deputies  were  inviolable — 
that  it  should  be  a  capital  crime  to  arrest  or  detain  any  member, 
on  whose  part  soever  the  same  be  commanded.  On  the  24th,  the 
majority  of  the  clergy  joined  the  Tiers  Etat  for  the  verification 
of  their  powers  in  common.  On  the  25th  between  forty  and  fifty 
of  the  noblesse  united  in  the  same  way.  On  the  ayth  the  king,  by 
letter,  invited  the  whole  body  of  the  nobility,  and  the  clergy,  to  do 
what  he  had  protested  against  on  the  23rd.  On  the  3Oth,  the 
formal  union  is  completed.  The  States-General  have  lost  their 
ancient  name.  They  are  three  orders  no  longer — they  are  the 
National  Assembly. 

The  extraordinary  change  in  the  resistance  of  the  Court  to  the 
union  of  the  three  orders  was,  in  all  probability,  produced  by  the 
apprehension  that  the  French  guards  could  not  be  relied  upon  in 
any  contest  with  the  National  Assembly,  if  the  military  power  and 
.01  insurgent  populace  should  be  brought  into  conflict.  There  were 

*  Historic  Parlementaire." 


478  HISTORY   OF   ENGLAND. 

regiments  of  foreign  troops  in  the  king's  service,  and  these  might 
be  gradually  concentrated  in  the  neighbourhood  of  Paris,  where 
bread-riots  were  becoming  very  fearful.  On  the  i8th  of  July, 
Mirabeau  stated  in  the  National  Assembly  that  there  were  twenty- 
five  thousand  troops  between  Paris  and  Versailles,  and  that  twenty 
thousand  more  were  expected.  He  moved  an  Address  to  the  king 
that  he  would  cause  the  troops  to  be  removed.  The  king  replied 
that  the  troops  were  there  to  maintain  order,  and  secure  the  free- 
dom of  their  deliberations.  Necker,  who  had  become  powerless  to 
advise  or  to  control,  begged  for  permission  to  resign.  On  the  I  ith 
of  July  he  was  dismissed ;  and  was  requested  to  depart  secretly 
from  Versailles.  On  the  1 2th  it  became  known  that  the  ministry 
of  Necker,  from  which  so  much  had  been  expected  by  the  people, 
was  at  an  end  ;  that  other  men  hostile  to  the  popular  cause  were  in 
the  royal  confidence.  Marshal  de  Broglie,  who  was  minister  of 
war,  with  the  command  of  the  troops,  was  reported  to  have  written 
to  the  prince  de  Conde,  that  with  fifty  thousand  men  he  would  dis- 
perse these  wolves,  the  national  deputies ;  and  the  fools  who  ap- 
plauded them.  Foulon  was  named  intendant  of  marine — Foulon, 
who  had  said  that  if  the  people  were  hungry  they  might  eat  grass. 
The  1 2th  of  July  was  a  Sunday.  There  were  movements  of  troops 
from  the  suburbs  of  the  city.  Placards  were  issued  in  the  name  of 
the  king  inviting  the  inhabitants  to  keep  their  houses.  The  popu- 
lar curiosity  became  more  intense.  At  noon  the  Palais  Royal  was 
filled  with  eager  crowds.  A  young  man,  who  was  hereafter  to  take 
a  leading  position,  Camille  Desmoulins,  came  out  from  the  Cafe 
Foy  with  sword  and  pistol  in  hand,  and  mounting  a  table,  cried 
"  To  arms."  A  multitude  rush  forth,  with  green  cockades,  or  green 
boughs  in  their  hats.  They  seize  from  an  image-shop  a  bust  of 
Necker.  and  a  bust  of  the  duke  of  Orleans,  and,  draping  them  in 
crape,  bear  them  about  in  procession.  Prince  Lambesc,  at  the  head 
of  the  Royal  German  regiment,  encounters  the  procession,  and 
disperses  the  people  with  musket  and  sabre.  There  are  other  fights 
between  the  Parisians  and  the  foreign  soldiery,  the  French  guards 
taking  part  with  the  populace.  The  cry  "  To  Arms  "  goes  through 
all  the  city.  The  night  falls  upon  a  population  maddened  with  rage 
or  fear.  In  the  morning,  the  cry  is  again  "  To  Arms."  Thou- 
sands of  fierce  men  are  in  the  streets,  searching  for  guns  and  am- 
munition in  every  public  place.  A  municipal  authority  is  hastily 
formed  at  the  Hotel  de  Ville.  Public  criers  proclaim  that  all  men 
should  resort  to  their  districts  to  be  enrolled.  In  a  few  hours  the 
National  Guard  of  Paris  is  constituted,  each  man  wearing  a  red 
and  blue  cockade.  But  how  to  arm  them  ?  Smiths  nre  making 


ATTACK   ON   THE   BASTILE.  479 

pikes;  gunpowder  has  been  obtained;  but  muskets  are  wanting. 
The  great  day  of  the  I4th  dawns ;  and  the  tidings  go  forth  that  at 
the  Hotel  des  Invalides  there  are  ample  stores  of  guns.  By  nine 
o'clock  on  that  morning  the  Hotel  has  been  ransacked  ;  and  twen- 
ty-eight thousand  fire-locks  are  in  the  hands  of  these  furious  vol- 
unteers. "  To  the  Bastile  "  is  now  the  cry  that  gives  a  precise 
direction  to  the  popular  violence. 

France  had  many  Bastiles,  where,  without  legal  trial  or  sen- 
tence, men  suspected  of  designs  against  the  government,  or  who 
had  given  offence  to  a  courtier  or  a  royal  mistress,  might  be  shut 
up  even  to  the  end  of  their  days,  under  the  authority  of  a  lettre  de 
cachet,  through  whose  mysterious  agency  they  vanished  out  of 
society,  and  were  as  if  dead.  The  great  Bastile  of  Paris  was  a 
fortress  built  in  the  fourteenth  century — a  massive  stone  structure 
of  nine  towers,  surrounded  by  a  deep  ditch.  Other  ditches,  with 
draw-bridges,  and  strong  barriers,  were  between  the  fortress  and 
the  street  St.  Antoine.  The  Bastile  had  become  celebrated 
throughout  Europe,  by  the  remarkable  narrative  of  the  escape  of 
two  men,  De  Latude,  and  D'Alegre,  in  1756.  Their  adventures 
made  the  construction  of  this  horrible  prison  familiar  to  English- 
men. The  labour  they  went  through  for  eighteen  months — in  plait- 
ing ropes  out  of  the  threads  of  their  linen,  to  form  a  ladder  for 
their  descent  of  eighty  feet  from  the  platform  to  the  ditch  ;  and  in 
removing  the  iron  bars  from  the  chimney  by  which  they  were  to 
gain  the  platform — this  labour  was  almost  incredible.  But  the 
perseverance  of  these  two  fellow-prisoners  indicated  how  strong 
was  the  desire  of  escape  from  a  den  where  men  went  mad,  under 
the  sense  of  injustice  and  the  pressure  of  despair.  In  England,  the 
Bastile  was  the  great  symbol  of  the  tyranny  of  the  French  govern- 
ment. Cowper  described  it  in  1785  as  "the  house  of  bondage 
worse  than  that  of  old  which  God  avenged  on  Pharaoh  ;  "  and  he 
thus  looks  forward,  almost  with  a  prophetic  eye,  to  the  catastrophe 
of  the  I4th  of  July,  1789: 

"  Ye  horrid  towers,  the  abode  of  broken  hearts, 
Ye  dungeons  and  ye  cages  of  despair, 
That  monarchs  have  supplied  from  age  to  age 
With  music  such  as  suits  their  sovereign  ears, 
The  sighs  and  groans  of  miserable  men ! 
There's  not  an  English  heart  that  would  not  leap 
To  hear  that  ye  were  fallen  at  last."* 

The  attack  on  the  Bastile  had  been  expected  by  the  governor,  De 
Launay.  He  had  placed  artillery  on  the  tops  of  the  towers.   He  had  a 
hundred  and  fourteen  men  in  the  fortress,  with  arms  and  ammuni- 
*  "The  Task,"  book  v. 


480  HISTORY   OF    ENGLAND. 

tion,  but  with  scanty  store  of  provisions.  The  Committee  at  the 
Hotel  de  Ville  sent  a  deputation  to  the  governor,  to  beg  him  to  re- 
move from  the  towers  the  cannon  which  commanded  the  quartier 
St.  Antoine.  The  cannon  were  drawn  back  from  the  embrasures. 
But  St.  Antoine'  was  not  so  easily  quieted.  That  quarter  was  the 
residence  of  a  great  artisan  population.  Paris  had  been  growing 
during  the  century  into  a  very  considerable  manufacturing  town  ; 
and  in  the  Faubourg  St.  Antoine,  especially,  the  working  people 
were  collected  together  in  large  numbers,  in  consequence  of  an 
edict  of  Louis  XVI.,  intended  "to  relieve  them  from  the  restric- 
tions which  are  injurious  to  their  interests  as  well  as  to  their  free- 
dom of  trade."  They  had  privileges  then  granted  which  relieved 
them  from  the  tyranny  of  the  guilds.*  But  the  agglomeration  of  a 
vast  working  population,  at  a  time  of  public  excitement  and  of 
private  distress,  was  a  serious  danger ;  and  thus  in  every  stage  of 
the  French  Revolution  the  Faubourg  St.  Antoine  was  a  terrible 
power  in  the  hands  of  those  who  worked  upon  the  popular  passions. 
About  noon  of  the  I4th  of  July,  Thuriot  de  la  Rosiere,  an  advocate, 
has  demanded  to  see  the  governor  of  the  Bastile,  to  warn  him  of 
the  cry  which  has  gone  forth  in  the  more  polite  quarters  of  Paris, 
and  to  exhort  him  to  surrender.  De  Launay  and  Thuriot  went 
upon  the  battlements  ;  and  there  they  saw  a  vast  multitude  swarm- 
ing towards  the  grim  towers,  along  every  street  and  every  alley  of 
the  Faubourg.  Thuriot  shows  himself  from  the  battlements ;  de- 
scends ;  and  addresses  the  crowd  from  a  window  in  the  governor's 
house,  with  some  words  intended  to  calm  their  fury.  He  receives 
only  their  curses  ;  and  an  attack  commences  in  downright  earnest. 
This  roaring  multitude  have  resolute  men  amongst  them.  Four 
with  axes  make  their  way  from  the  roof  of  a  neighbouring  house  to 
the  outer  wall  of  the  Bastile,  jump  down  into  the  court,  and  begin 
hewing  at  the  chains  of  the  drawbridge.  The  drawbridge  at 
length  falls  ;  and  the  crowd  pours  into  the  exterior  court.  Another 
drawbridge  impedes  their  progress.  They  rush  at  it;  and  are  re- 
ceived with  a  fire  of  musketry.  Dead  and  wounded  men  are  car- 
ried forth,  and  the  sight  rouses  the  gathering  multitude  to  addi- 
tional fury.  Large  numbers  of  the  French  guards  come  to  assist 
in  the  attack.  De  Launay  fires  upon  the  crowd  from  the  battle- 
ments ;  the  populace  fire  upon  the  Swiss  and  the  Invalides  who 
defend  the  fortress.  There  have  been  five  hours  of  this  contest 
without  a  reasonable  expectation  of  the  stronghold  being  taken. 
The  garrison  has  only  lost  one  man.  Nearly  two  hundred  of  the 
assailants  have  been  killed  or  wounded.  But  the  Invalides  wished 

*  Tocqueville,  p.  139- 


ATTACK    ON   THE   BASTILE.  481 

to  surrender — the  Swiss  expressed  their  desire  to  resist.  De 
Launay  in  his  despair  of  being  able  finally  to  repel  a  mob  of  thou- 
sands, animated  by  one  spirit,  attempted  to  apply  a  match  to  the 
powder  magazine,  but  he  was  stopped  by  one  of  his  officers.  Moved 
by  that  almost  instinctive  fear  of  a  raging  multitude  which  the  brav- 
est may  feel,  he  was  now  inclined  to  capitulate,  but  not  to  surren- 
der. He  wrote  a  note  to  the  besiegers,  to  the  effect  that  he  had 
twenty  thousand  pounds  of  powder  within  the  magazine,  and  would 
blow  up  the  Bastile,  and  thus  destroy  its  neighbourhood,  himself 
and  his  besiegers,  if  they  did  not  accept  a  capitulation  which  would 
leave  him  and  his  garrison  to  go  free.  The  note  was  given  to 
Elie,  an  officer  of  the  French  guards  ;  and  he  gave  his  assurance, 
in  which  his  men  joined,  that  if  the  drawbridge  were  lowered,  the 
garrison  should  receive  no  harm.  It  was  lowered.  The  furious 
crowd  rushed  in,  passed  the  Invalides  and  the  Swiss  who  were 
ranged  in  the  inner  court.  The  French  guards  could  not  wholly 
protect  those  to  whom  safety  had  been  assured.  It  was  determined 
to  take  De  Launay  to  the  Hotel  de  Ville.  As  he  moves  along  the 
yells  of  the  multitude  grow  louder ;  the  efforts  to  protect  the  un- 
fortunate man  are  less  and  less  availing.  Hullin,  one  of  the  be- 
siegers, even  fights  against  the  mob  to  defend  his  prisoner.  Hullin 
is  struck  down  and  De  Launay  is  murdered.  Major  De  Losme, 
one  of  the  officers  of  the  Bastile,  was  surrounded.  He  had  al- 
ways shown  kindness  to  the  prisoners,  and  one  of  the  crowd,  who 
had  been  under  his  charge,  now  seized  a  musket  to  defend  him. 
De  Losme  was  killed.  Two  of  the  Invalides  were  hanged  by  the 
mob.  Many  of  the  besiegers  have  been  exploring  the  dungeons 
of  the  Bastile,  where  they  find  only  seven  prisoners.  Others  lin- 
ger around  the  hated  place,  shouting  and  singing  in  frantic  joy.,  A 
vast  number  have  marched  off  to  the  Hotel  de  Ville,  conducting 
their  prisoners  to  receive  judgment  for  the  guilt  of  having  been 
faithful  to  their  duty.  The  officers  of  the  French  guard  de- 
mand that  the  Invalides  and  the  Swiss  shall  go  free,  as  the  reward 
of  themselves  and  their  men  for  their  aid  in  this  day's  work. 
Another  murder,  that  of  Flesselles,  a  magistrate,  was  perpetrated 
that  evening.  Through  the  night  Paris  watched  as  if  a  foreign 
enemy  were  approaching  to  sack  the  city.  The  windows  were 
lighted  ;  patrols  were  in  all  the  streets  ;  orators  were  still  harangu- 
ing the  populace,  amongst  whom  Marat  was  conspicuous.  St. 
Antoine  gave  itself  up  to  a  frenzy  of  delight,  and  the  pains  of  hun- 
ger were  less  keenly  felt  in  the  time  of  triumph  and  of  revenge. 
The  occurrences  at  Paris  were  imperfectly  known  at  Versailles ; 
but  at  midnight  the  duke  de  Liancourt  entered  the  king's  bed-chan> 
VOL.  VI.- 3 1 


482  HISTORY   OF    ENGLAND. 

ber,  and  told  him  how  the  Bastile  had  fallen.  "  It  is  a  riot," 
(entente)  said  the  king.  "  No,  Sire,  it  is  a  revolution,"  replied  the 
duke.  The  danger  which  now  threatened  the  throne,  and  all  who 
surrounded  the  throne,  was  manifest.  The  power  was  passing 
away  from  the  National  Assembly  into  the  hands  of  an  armed  pop- 
ulace. 

On  the  morning  of  the  I5th  of  July  the  king  suddenly  appeared 
in  the  midst  of  the  National  Assembly,  to  announce  that  he  had 
given  orders  to  the  troops  to  withdraw  from  Paris  and  Versailles, 
and  that  he  relied  upon  the  Assembly  to  restore  order  and  tran- 
quillity. The  deputies  loudly  applauded  :  as  the  king  returned  to 
the  palace  the  people  vociferously  shouted.  A  deputation  of  the 
Assembly  proceeded  to  Paris  to  proclaim  at  the  Hotel  de  Ville  the 
glad  words  that  Louis  had  that  day  spoken.  The  king,  it  was 
held,  had  authorized  the  establishment  of  the  National  Guard. 
A  commander  must  be  found.  In  the  hall  was  a  bust  of  LaFayette; 
and  a  deputy  pointing  to  it,  the  friend  of  Washington  was  elected 
commander  by  acclamation.  In  the  same  way  Bailly  was  constituted 
Mayor  of  Paris,  in  the  place  of  Flesselles,  the  Provost  of  the 
Merchants,  who  had  been  shot  the  night  before.  The  Parisians 
had  now  confidence  in  the  king,  and  the  king  had  confidence  in 
the  Parisians.  He  announced  to  the  Assembly  that  he  would  visit 
his  good  city.  He  would  dismiss  his  ministers  ;  he  would  recall 
Necker.  But  some  who  surrounded  the  king  had  not  his  trust  in 
the  disposition  of  the  people.  On  the  morning  of  the  i  yth  the 
king  is  on  his  way  to  Paris  attended  by  a  large  number  of  the 
deputies.  The  count  d'Artois  (the  king's  brother),  the  prince  de 
Conde,  and  others  of  royal  blood  —  marshal  de  Broglie,  the  Polignacs 
and  several  of  the  recent  ministry,  are  on  their  way  to  the  frontiers. 
The  queen  vainly  attempted  to  prevent  the  king  going  amongst  a 
dangerous  populace.  "  The  king  was  of  a  weak  character,  but  he 
was  not  timid,"*  and  he  kept  to  his  determination.  His  reception 
was  such  as  to  fill  him  with  hope  for  the  future.  Loyalty  and 
patriotism  joined  in  the  universal  cry — "  Vive  le  Roi — Vive  la 
Nation:"1 

The  obnoxious  ministers  have  fled  from  Versailles.  One,  the 
most  obnoxious,  Foulon,  is  reported  to  have  died  ;  for  a  sumptuous 
funeral  has  proceeded  from  his  house.  On  the  morning  of  the 
22nd  of  July  some  peasants  of  Vitry,  near  Fontainebleau,  are 
leading  into  Paris  an  old  man  bound  with  ropes  to  the  tail  of  a  cart. 
On  his  back  is  fastened  a  bundle  of  grass,  and  a  collar  of  nettles  is 
round  his  neck.  It  is  Foulon,  who  has  been  denounced  as  a 

*  Durmont — "  Souvenirs  sur  Mirabeau,"  p.  81. 


MURDER   OF    FOULON   AND    BERTHIER.  483 

speculator  in  famine — one  who  said  the  poor  should  eat  grass  if 
they  could  not  get  bread.  He  is  dragged  to  the  Hotel  de  Ville  to 
be  judged.  La  Fayette  arrived.  Anxious  to  save  the  trembling 
man  of  seventy-four  from  the  popular  fury,  he  proposed  to 
consign  him  to  the  prison  of  the  Abbaye,  that  he  might  be  tried 
according  to  the  laws.  "  What  is  the  use  of  trying  a  man,"  cried  a 
voice,  "  who  has  been  judged  these  thirty  years  ?  "  The  crowd 
rushed  upon  their  victim  ;  dragged  him  out  of  the  hall  ;  and  in  a 
few  minutes  he  was  hanging  to  a  lantern  at  the  corner  of  the  street. 
His  head  was  cut  off ;  a  bundle  of  hay  was  stuffed  into  the  mouth  ; 
and  this  trophy  of  mob  vengeance  was  carried  through  the  city. 
The  same  night  Berthier,  the  son-in-law  of  Foulon, — Intendant  of 
Paris,  and  hated  as  a  tax-levier, — is  brought  in  a  carriage  to  the 
Hotel  de  Ville,  surrounded  by  National  Guards,  sent  by  the 
municipals  to  protect  him.  The  protection  avails  him  not.  The 
superseders  of  law  have  him  in  their  clutches.  He  fights  against 
them  with  dogged  resolution.  But  the  lantern  has  its  prey,  and 
another  ghastly  head,  and  a  bleeding  heart,  are  carried  in  horrible 
procession.  The  municipal  authorities  of  Paris  have  been  trampled 
down  by  murderers.  Bailly  and  La  Fayette  indignantly  resigned 
their  offices  ;  but  they  were  won  back  again,  when  the  municipality 
was  re-organized,  under  the  name  of  La  Commune. 

The  doings  of  Paris  were  not  without  successful  imitations  in 
the  provinces.  On  the  2oth  of  July,  Arthur  Young  was  at  Stras- 
bourg, where  he  first  heard  the  news  of  the  overthrow  of  the  Bastile. 
He  writes,  "  The  spirit  of  revolt  is  gone  forth  into  various  parts  of 
the  kingdom.  The  price  of  bread  has  prepared  the  populace 
everywhere  for  all  sorts  of  violence."  He  soon  saw  the  course 
which  the  violence  was  taking  in  the  rural  districts.  He  was  at 
Besangon  on  the  27th.  There  he  heard  of  chateaux  burnt  or 
plundered,  the  seigneurs  hunted  down  like  wild  beasts,  their  wives 
and  daughters  outraged  ;  "  and  these  abominations,  not  inflicted  on 
marked  persons,  who  were  odious  for  their  former  conduct  or  prin- 
ciples."* In  his  inn  at  Dole  there  were  "  a  gentleman,  unfor- 
tunately a  seigneur,  his  wife,  family,  three  servants,  an  infant  but 
a  few  months  old,  who  escaped  from  their  flaming  chateau  half 
naked  in  the  night  ;  all  their  property  lost  except  the  land  itself  ; 
and  this  family  valued  and  esteemed  by  the  neighbours,  with  many 
virtues  to  command  the  love  of  the  poor,  and  no  oppressions  to 
provoke  their  enmity."  f  The  inquiries  of  Arthur  Young  led 
him  to  believe  that  the  burnings  and  plunderings  had  not  been 
committed  by  troops  of  brigands,  but  by  the  peasants  only.  The 

*  "Travels  ia  France,"  p.  146.  +  Ibid.,  p.  149. 


4.84  HISTORV   OF    ENGLAND. 

notion  of  brigands  going  through  the  country  in  troops  eight  hundred 
strong,  and  even  to  the  number  of  sixteen  hundred,  was  the  prevalent 
belief  in  the  towns.  People  came  around  Young  to  ask  for  news. 
"  They  were  much  surprised  to  find  that  I  gave  no  credit  to  the 
existence  of  brigands,  as  I  was  well  persuaded  that  all  the  outrages 
that  had  been  committed  were  the  work  of  the  peasants  only."  * 

The  National  Assembly,  all  things  being  tolerably  quiet  in  Paris 
proceeds  with  its  self-appointed  work  of  sweeping  away  all 
ancient  things,  for  the  purpose  of  building  up  a  wholly  new 
system  for  the  government  of  twenty-five  millions  of  people.  The 
Assembly  had  been  long  occupied  in  drawing  up  a  Declaration  of  the 
Rights  of  Man.  Some  who  were  concerned  in  the  preparation  of 
this  document,  amongst  whom  was  Dumont,  considered  it  a  puerile 
fiction.  It  declared  that  "  men  are  born  free  and  equal."  It  is 
not  true,  writes  the  fellow-worker  of  Mirabeau.  Are  men  born 
free  ?  They  are  born  in  a  state  of  weakness  and  necessary  depend- 
ence. Are  they  equal  ?  By  equality  do  we  understand  equality  of 
fortune,  of  talent,  of  virtue,  of  industry,  of  condition  ?  f  The  meta- 
physical difficulties  of  the  National  Assembly  were  quickly 
absorbed  in  one  vast  measure  of  sweeping  change.  At  a  nocturnal 
sitting  of  the  4th  of  August,  after  a  Report  of  a  Committee  on  the 
troubled  state  of  the  kingdom  had  been  read,  it  was  proposed  by 
two  noblemen  that  all  taxes  should  be  proportionably  paid  by  all, 
according  to  their  income,  as  well  as  all  other  public  burthens  ; 
that  all  feudal  rights  should  be  made  redeemable  by  a  money  value  ; 
that  corvtes  and  all  personal  services  should  be  abolished.  A 
Breton  deputy,  in  the  dress  of  a  farmer,  rose  and  exclaimed,  "  Let 
the  title-deeds,  the  terrible  instruments  which  for  ages  have  tor- 
mented the  people,  be  brought  here,  and  burnt — those  parchments 
by  which  men  are  required  to  be  yoked  to  a  wagon  like  beasts 
— which  compel  men  to  pass  the  night  in  beating  the  ponds,  to 
prevent  the  frogs  from  disturbing  the  sleep  of  their  luxurious 
lords.  Declare  the  compulsory  redemption  of  these  services,  and 
thus  stop  the  burning  of  the  chateaux."  Dumont  saw  the  extraor- 
dinary scene  of  the  4th  of  August,  when  a  work  "  which  would 
have  demanded  a  year  of  care  and  deliberation,  was  proposed, 
voted,  resolved,  by  general  acclamation.  I  know  not  how  many 
laws  were  decreed  :  the  abolition  of  feudal  rights,  the  abolition  of 
tithes,  and  the  abolition  of  the  privileges  of  provinces — three 
articles  which  in  themselves  embrace  a  whole  system  of  jurispru- 
dence and  of  policy,  were  decided,  with  ten  or  a  dozen  others,  in  less 
time  than  a  parliament  of  England  would  have  taken  for  the  first 

*  "Travels  in  France,"  p.  155.  t  "  Souvenirs  sur  Mirabeau,"  p.  98. 


PROVINCIAL    ANARCHY.  485 

reading  of  a  Bill  of  some  importance."  *  Mirabeau  was  not  present 
at  that  sitting.  The  next  day  he  said  to  Dumont :  "  Behold  our 
French ;  they  take  an  entire  month  to  dispute  about  syllables,  and 
in  one  night  they  overturn  all  the  ancient  order  of  the  monarchy." 
On  the  1 2th  of  August,  Arthur  Young,  being  at  Clermont, 
hears  of  the  famous  decrees  of  the  4th.  "  The  great  news  just 
arrived  from  Paris,  of  the  utter  abolition  of  tithes,  feudal  rights, 
game,  warrens,  pigeons,  f  &c.,  has  been  received  with  the  greatest 
joy  by  the  mass  of  the  people."  Sensible  men,  however,  complained 
of  the  injustice  of  declaring  what  will  be  done,  without  regulations 
of  what  was  to  be  done  at  the  moment  of  declaring.  About  a 
fortnight  later  he  was  "  pestered  with  all  the  mob  of  the  country 
shooting."  The  declaration  of  the  National  Assembly,  "  without 
any  statute  or  provision  to  secure  the  right  of  the  game  to  the 
possessor  of  the  soil,  according  to  the  tenour  of  the  vote,  has,  as  I 
am  everywhere  informed,  filled  all  the  fields  of  France  with  sports- 
men, to  an  utter  nuisance.  The  same  effects  have  flowed  from 
declarations  of  right  relative  to  titles,  taxes,  feudal  rights,  &c.  In 
the  declarations,  conditions  and  compensations  are  talked  of ;  but 
an  unruly,  ungovernable  multitude  seize  the  benefit  of  the  aboli- 
tion, and  laugh  at  the  obligations  or  recompense."  The  barriers 
that  stood  between  a  people  long  misgoverned  and  oppressed,  and 
all  the  ancient  restraints  of  their  servitude,  being  suddenly  bro- 
ken down,  their  excesses  could  scarcely  be  matter  of  wonder. 
There  is  very  little  exaggeration  in  what  Mr.  Eden  wrote  to  Mr. 
Pitt  from  Paris,  on  the  27th  of  August,  1789  :  "  It  would  lead  me 
too  far  to  enter  into  the  strange  and  unhappy  particulars  of  the 
present  situation  of  this  country.  The  anarchy  is  most  complete  J 
the  people  have  renounced  every  idea  and  principle  of  subordina- 
tion ;  the  magistracy  (so  far  as  there  remain  any  traces  of  magis 
tracy)  is  panic-struck ;  the  army  is  utterly  undone ;  and  the  sol 
diers  are  so  freed  from  military  discipline,  that  on  every  discontent, 
and  in  the  face  of  day,  they  take  their  arms  and  knapsacks,  and 
leave  their  regiments ;  the  church,  which  formerly  had  so  much 
influence,  is  now  in  general  treated  by  the  people  with  derision  ;  the 
revenue  is  greatly  and  rapidly  decreasing  amidst  the  disorders  of 
the  time  ;  even  the  industry  of  the  labouring  class  is  interrupted 
and  suspended.  In  short,  the  prospect,  in  every  point  of  view,  is 
most  alarming  ;  and  it  is  sufficient  to  walk  into  the  streets,  and  to 

*  "  Souvenirs  sur  Mirabeau,"  p.  100. 

t  One  of  the  exclusive  privileges  of  the  seigneurs  was  to  have  dove-houses  for  flocks  of 
birds  to  feed  upon  the  grain  of  the  lands  of  which  these  lords  neither  owned  nor  cap- 
tivated any  part. 


486  HISTORY   OF    ENGLAND. 

look  at  the  faces  of  those  who  pass,  to  see  that  there  is  a  general 
impression  of  calamity  and  terror."* 

The  scarcity  consequent  upon  a  bad  harvest  was  growing  more 
fearful,  especially  in  Paris.  The  furious  multitude,  filled  with 
vague  suspicions  by  incendiary  journalists  and  orators,  ascribed  the 
enormous  price  of  bread  to  other  than  natural  causes.  "  The  peo- 
ple," says  Dumont,  "  attributed  the  scarcity  to  the  aristocracy. 
The  aristocrats  had  caused  the  corn  to  be  cut  down  whilst  in  the 
blade  :  the  aristocrats  had  paid  the  bakers  not  to  make  bread ;  the 
aristocrats  had  thrown  the  grain  into  the  rivers.  There  was  no 
lie,  no  absurdity,  that  did  not  appear  probable. "f  A  foolish  dis- 
play of  loyalty  at  Versailles  turned  the  follies  of  the  people  into  a 
new  channel  of  rage  against  the  Court.  A  regiment  of  Flanders 
had  come  to  Versailles  ;  and  the  officers  of  the  king's  body-guard 
gave  an  entertainment  on  the  ist  of  October  to  the  officers  of  this 
regiment.  The  king  aftd  queen  entered  during  the  banquet.  The 
orchestra  played  "  O  Richard,  O  mon  Roi"  and  shouts  of  "  Vive 
le  Roi  "  awoke  the  sentiment  of  loyalty  even  amongst  officers  of  the 
National  Guard  who  had  been  invited.  Some  of  them  turned  their 
national  cockade,  showing  only  the  white  beneath.  Even  black 
cockades  were  to  be  seen.  There  was  an  evident  re-action  against 
the  popular  cause.  The  Parisians  heard  of  these  demonstrations  ; 
and  an  insurrectionary  feeling  was  fast  spreading  amongst  the  half- 
starved  populace,  who  had  broken  open  baker's  shops,  and  attempt- 
ed to  hang  a  baker,  who  was  saved  by  the  National  Guard.  At 
daybreak  on  the  morning  of  the  5th  of  October,  a  woman  went  into 
a  guard-room,  and  took  a  drum,  which  she  beat  as  she  marched 
along.  Crowds  of  market-women  came  forth,  for  this  day,  being 
Monday,  was  an  idle  day  for  them.  They  began  to  cry  "  Bread." 
There  was  no  bread  in  the  bakers'  shops,  and  they  would  go  to 
Versailles,  to  fetch  the  baker  and  his  wife.  The  crowd  of  women 
increased  to  hundreds ;  and  they  soon  filled  the  Hotel  de  Ville. 
In  four  or  five  hours  they  were  joined  by  a  body  of  men,  who 
obtained  muskets  and  two  pieces  of  cannon  from  the  municipal 
stores.  The  excesses  of  the  women,  who  wanted  to  burn  the  build- 
ing, were  stopped  by  Maillard,  an  usher  of  the  court,  who  told  them 
that  he  was  one  of  the  conquerors  of  the  Bastile.  By  the  consent 
of  a  superior  officer  he  proposed  to  lea'd  the  women  away  on  the 
road  to  Versailles,  where  they  wanted  to  go,  that  the  authorities 
might  have  time  to  collect  their  forces,  and  stop  the  tumult.  On 
the  troop  of  Amazons  went,  with  this  tall  man  in  black  as  their 

*Tomlin's  "  Life  of  Pitt,"  vol.  ii.  p.  74. 
t  "  Souvenirs  sur  Mirabeau,"  p.  122. 


PARISIAN   MOB  AT   VERSAILLES.  487 

general.  As  the  day  advanced  the  affair  became  more  serious. 
La  Fayette  and  the  Committees  of  Districts  were  at  the  Hotel 
de  Ville.  The  National  Guard,  the  French  Guards  (now  called 
Grenadiers),  the  rough  men  from  the  Faubourg  St.  Antoine 
— all  gathered  round  La  Fayette,  demanding  to  go  to  Versailles. 
The  Commune  deliberated  till  four  o'clock,  and  then  ordered  La 
Fayette  to  march.  Meanwhile,  Maillard,  with  his  female  host,  had 
reached  Versailles  about  three  o'clock.  The  women  demanded  to 
enter  the  National  Assembly.  Fifteen  were  admitted,  with  a  sol- 
dier, who  had  belonged  to  the  French  Guards.  The  soldier  said 
Paris  was  starving ;  they  came  for  bread  ;  and  for  the  punishment 
of  the  king's  body-guard,  who  had  insulted  the  national  cockade. 
Mounier,  the  president,  could  only  get  rid  of  the  troublesome  vis- 
itors, upon  the  condition  that  he  should  accompany  the  deputation 
to  see  the  king.  They  were  admitted  to  the  presence  of  Louis,  who 
spoke  to  them  affectionately;  and  they  quitted  the  kind-hearted 
king  crying  "  Vive  le  Roi."  The  women  outside,  growing  more  vio- 
lent, said  that  they  had  been  betrayed  by  their  deputation  ;  but  they 
were  pacified  for  a  time,  by  a  written  paper,  signed  by  the  king,  de- 
claring that  every  care  should  be  taken  for  the  provisioning  of  Paris. 
A  conflict  then  appeared  imminent  between  the  men  of  St.  Antoine 
and  the  king's  body-guard.  The  cannon  which  had  been  brought 
from  Paris  was  pointed  against  the  guard ;  but  the  powder  was 
wet,  and  the  men  sulkily  said,  "  It  is  not  time  yet."  In  this  night 
of  peril,  Mounier  pressed  upon  the  king  the  acceptance  of  the  arti- 
cles of  the  constitution,  which  assent  he  had  not  previously  given. 
The  king  yielded.  When  Mounier  returned  to  the  hall  of  the 
Assembly,  it  was  filled  with  women,  who  interrupted  the  proceed- 
ings. There  was  a  discussion  upon  the  criminal  laws.  A  fish- 
woman  called  out — "  Stop  that  babbler  ;  that  is  not  the  question ; 
the  question  is  about  bread."  At  midnight,  La  Fayette,  with  fif- 
teen thousand  of  the  National  Guard,  arrived.  He  had  made  the 
men  under  his  command  swear  fidelity  to  the  law  and  the  king. 
He  entered  the  Salle  des  Menus ;  told  the  president  that  the  men 
had  promised  to  obey  the  king  and  the  National  Assembly ;  and 
then,  attended  by  only  two  commissioners,  went  to  the  king,  and 
having  explained  to  him  the  state  of  affairs,  received  orders  to 
assign  to  the  National  Guards  the  external  posts  of  the  palace ; 
the  body  guard  and  the  Swiss  remaining  in  the  interior.  At  three 
in  the  morning  the  Assembly  separated,  and  La  Fayette  went  to 
rest.  About  six  in  the  morning  a  mob  of  the  Parisians,  mingled 
with  some  of  Versailles,  got  over  the  iron  railing  of  the  palace,  and 
forced  their  way  into  the  interior.  The  subsequent  occurrences 


488  HISTORY   OF   ENGLAND. 

of  that  terrible  6th  of  October  are  differently  stated    by  various 
authorities.     There  is  one  description  by  the  side  of  which  all  other 
descriptions    look  pale;  and    yet    the  facts  which  "  History    will 
record  "  are  more  definite  than  the  general  truth  as  coloured  by  the 
glowing  imagination  of  Burke.*     The  mob  of  assassins  and  plun- 
derers, when  they  had  penetrated  into  the  interior  of  the  palace, 
directed  their  furious  steps  towards  the  queen's  apartments.     They 
were  probably  guided  by  some  spy  about  the  royal  family.     Mad- 
ame   Campan  looked  out  of  the  ante-chamber,  and  saw  a  faithful 
guard,  covered  with  wounds,  who  kept  the  passage  from  the  hall 
against  many  men,  and  who  cried  out "  Save  the  queen  ;  they  come  to 
assassinate  her."     She  bolted  the  door ;  the  queen  jumped  from 
her  bed,  and  made  her  way  to  the  king's  apartments.     The  assas- 
sins did  not  reach  the  queen's  chamber,  says  Madame  Campan. 
The  body-guard  had  taken  refuge  there,  and  there  also  the  king 
had  arrived.     To  the  famous  apartment  called  the  (Eil-de-Boeuf  the 
guards  had  been  sent  by  the  king ;  and  in  his  own  apartment,  to 
which  he  had  returned,  he  was  joined  by  the  queen  and  her  children. 
The  mob  were  thundering  at  the  door  of  the  CEil-de-Bceuf  when  a 
detachment  of  the  French  Guards  arrived,  under  the  command  of 
Serjeant  Hoche,  a  man  famous  in  after  days.     They  came  to  save 
their  brother  soldiers  ;  and  they  soon  cleared  the  palace  of  those 
who  thirsted  after  blood.     Two  of  the  guards  had  been  killed  on 
the  staircase  ;  and  a  ruffian  cut  off  their  heads,  which  were  carried 
about  on  pikes.     La  Fayette  arrived.     The  mob  outside  cried  that 
the  king  must  go  to  Paris.     Louis  showed  himself  on  a  balcony ; 
and  so  did  the  queen  with  her  children.     La  Fayette  took  the 
queen's  hand,  and  raised  it  respectfully  to  his  lips,  and  then  the 
mob  shouted  "  Vive  la  Reine."    It  was  agreed  that  the  king  and 
the  royal  family  should  go  to  Paris  ;  and  the  Assembly  voting  that 
they  were  inseparable  from  the  king,  a  hundred  deputies  were  select- 
ed to  accompany  him.     At  one  o'clock,  a  most  unregal  procession 
was  in  motion — National  Guards  mingled  with  shouting  and  sing- 
ing men  of  St.  Antoine  ;  cannon,  with  pikemen  astride  them  ;  wag- 
gon-loads of  corn,  lent  from  the  stores  of  Versailles  ;  hackney- 
coaches  ;  the  royal  carriage  ;  carriages  with  deputies ;  La  Fayette 
on  horseback ;  and,  swarming  round  the  king  and  his  family,  vocif- 
erous women,  crying  "  We  shall  no  more  want  bread ;  we  are  com- 
ing with  the  baker,  the  bakeress,  and  the  baker's  boy. "    As  the 
darkness  deepens,  the    multitudinous    array  reaches  the    barrier. 
Mayor  Bailly  harangues  the  king ;  and  then,  at  the  Hotel  de  Ville, 
there  are  more    harangues.     The  king  says  he  comes  with  pleas- 

*  See  "  Reflections  on  the  Revolution  in  France. 


ROYAL    FAMILY   REMOVED   TO   PARIS.  489 

ure  and  with  confidence  among  his  people.  The  mayor  attempts 
to  repeat  the  spetch,  but  omits  the  word  "confidence."  "  Say  with 
confidence,"  interposes  the  queen.  Before  wearied  royalty  can 
sleep,  with  hasty  accommodation  in  the  palace  of  the  Tuileries, 
long  since  disused,  the  king  has  to  be  shown  to  the  people  from  a 
balcony  by  torchlight,  wearing  the  tricolor  cockade.  In  a  few  days 
the  Tuileries  looks  something  like  a  palace.  There  was  an  inter- 
val of  tranquillity.  The  harassed  king,  the  slave  of  circumstances, 
soon  manifested  an  outward  show  of  that  confidence  which  he  had 
professed  to  feel.  An  Englishman  in  Paris  writes,  on  the  i8th 
of  October,  "  this  morning  I  saw  his  majesty  walking  in  the  Champs 
Elyse'es,  without  guards.  He  seemed  easy  and  cheerful."  * 

*  Trail  to  Romilly,  in  "  Romilly's  Memoirs." 


4QO  HISTORY  OF   ENGLAND, 


CHAPTER  XXVI. 

Connexion  of  the  French  Revolution  with  English  history — The  public  opinion  of  Eng- 
land on  the  Revolution- — Views  of  eminent  men. — The  king  of  trance  visits  the  Na« 
tional  Assembly. — Session  of  the  British  Parliament. — Divisions  in  the  Whig  Party. 
— The  Test  Act. — Nootka  Sound.  — War  with  Spain  averted— Fate  of  the  Federation 
in  Paris. — Burke  publishes  his  "  Reflections  on  the  French  Revolution." — Russia  and 
Turkey. — Siege  of  Ismail. — Mirabeau  President  of  the  National  Assembly — His  nego- 
tiations with  the  Court. — His  death. — Parliament. — Breach  of  the  friendship  between 
Burke  and  Fox — Clamour  against  the  Dissenters. — The  Birmingham  Riots. 

THE  history  of  the  French  Revolution  is  essentially  connected 
with  the  history  of  England,  almost  from  the  first  day  of  the  meet- 
ing of  the  States-General.  The  governments  of  the  two  countries 
were  not,  for  several  years,  brought  into  collision,  or  into  an  ex- 
change of  remonstrance  and  explanation,  on  the  subject  of  the 
momentous  events  in  France.  But  these  events,  in  all  their  shift- 
ing aspects,  so  materially  affected  the  state  of  public  opinion 
amongst  the  British  people,  that  they  gradually  exercised  a  greater 
influence  upon  our  external  policy  and  our  internal  condition,  than 
any  overthrow  of  dynasties,  any  wars,  any  disturbances  of  the  bal- 
ance of  power,  any  one  of  "  the  incidents  common  in  the  life  of  a 
nation," — to  use  the  words  of  Tocqueville, — even  a  far  greater  in- 
fluence than  the  American  Revolution,  which  was  the  precursor  of 
that  of  France.  For  this  cause,  we  feel  it  necessary  to  relate  the 
leading  events  of  this  signal  uprooting  of  ancient  institutions  and 
established  ideas,  more  fully  than  would  at  first  sight  appear  propor- 
tionate in  a  general  history  of  our  own  land.  Nevertheless,  we 
shall  aim  at  the  utmost  brevity  consistent  with  an  intelligible  nar- 
rative. At  every  act  of  this  great  drama,  we  shall  endeavour  to  show 
the  effect  of  its  memorable  scenes  upon  the  thoughts  and  feelings 
of  those  amongst  us  who  guided  the  national  sentiment  as  states- 
men and  writers.  "  Between  the  spring  of  1789  and  the  close  of 
1792,  the  public  mind  of  England  underwent  a  great  change.  "*  To 
trace  the  formation  of  that  aggregate  public  opinion, — to  which  the 
most  powerful  statesman  of  the  time  was  compelled  to  yield  a  re- 
luctant obedience,  and  against  which  the  most  eloquent  advocate 
of  popular  rights  could  only  feebly  protest, — is  a  task  of  which  the 

*  Macaulay-"  Life  of  Pitt" 


THE   PUBLIC   OPINION   OF   ENGLAND.  491 

execution  must  be  necessarily  inadequate,  but  which,  however  im- 
perfect, must  have  some  illustrative  historical  value. 

The  "  change  in  the  public  mind  "  with  which  the  fluctuating 
opinions  of  many  eminent  men  were  identified, — changes  in  most 
of  those  men  very  unjustly  denounced  as  apostacy, — proceeded 
from  the  original  inability  of  the  most  sagacious  to  see  the  probable 
career,  and  to  estimate  the  real  strength,  of  the  new-born  liberty  of 
France.  "  The  English,"  says  Tocqueville,  "  taught  by  their  own 
history,  and  enlightened  by  the  long  practice  of  political  freedom, 
perceived  dimly,  as  through  a  thick  veil,  the  approaching  spectre  of 
a  great  revolution.  But  they  were  unable  to  distinguish  its  real 
shape  ;  and  the  influence  it  was  so  soon  to  exercise  upon  the  des- 
tinies of  the  world,  and  upon  their  own,  was  unforeseen."  *  Much 
of  the  early  feeling  associated  with  the  French  Revolution  depend- 
ed upon  youth  and  temperament.  To  young  and  ardent  minds, 
1789  was  a  season  of  hope  and  promise. 

"  Bliss  was  it  in  the  dawn  to  be  alive, 
But  to  be  young  was  very  heaven !     Oh !  times, 
In  which  the  meagre,  stale,  forbidding  ways 
Of  custom,  law,  and  statute,  took  at  once 
The  attraction  of  a  country  in  romance." 

Coleridge,  who  first  gave  to  the  world  these  verses  of  Wordsworth 
in  his  poem  "  On  the  French  Revolution,  as  it  appeared  to  en- 
thusiasts at  its  commencement,"  says  in  prose,  almost  as  eloquent 
as  his  friend's  poetry,  "  Many  there  were,  young  men  of  loftiest 
minds,  yea,  the  prime  stuff  out  of  which  manly  wisdom  and  practi- 
cal greatness  are  formed,  who  had  appropriated  their  hopes  and 
the  ardour  of  their  souls  to  mankind  at  large,  to  the  wide  expanse 
of  national  interests,  which  then  seemed  fermenting  in  the  French 
republic  as  in  the  main  outlet  and  chief  crater  of  the  revolutionary 
torrents  ;  and  who  confidently  believed  that  these  torrents,  like  the 
lavas  of  Vesuvius,  were  to  subside  into  a  soil  of  inexhaustible 
fertility  in  the  circumjacent  lands,  the  old  divisions  and  mouldering 
edifices  of  which  they  had  covered  or  swept  away." f  "I  was  a 
sharer  in  the  general  vortex,"  adds  Coleridge.  Such  a  young  man, 
one  of  loftiest  mind,  William  Huskisson,  was  in  his  twentieth  year 
residing  with  his  uncle  in  Paris.  That  young  man,  destined 
to  form  one  of  the  most  important  members  of  a  Tory  government 
advancing  towards  liberal  opinions,  was  present  at  the  taking  of 
the  Bastile,  and  was  a  member  of  one  of  the  Clubs  of  Paris.  In 
1823,  when  he  was  a  candidate  for  Liverpool,  he  was  accused  of 
having  been  a  member  of  the  Jacobin  Club.  He  denied  the  charge, 

*  "  France  before  the  Revolution,"  p.  3,  t  "The  Friend,"  Essay  ii. 


492  HISTORY   OF   ENGLAND. 

but  he  frankly  said,  "  In  the  earlier  period  of  my  life,  when  I  was 
about  nineteen,  I  was  in  France ;  and  if  I  should  then  have  been 
misled  by  a  mistaken  admiration  of  what  I  now  think  the  errors  of 
that  revolution,  I  trust  that  the  ardour  of  youth  would  be  no  dis- 
creditable excuse I  am  not  ashamed  to  avow  that  I  was 

anxious  to  see  a  rational  system  of  liberty  established  in  that  fine 

country That  guilt  I  share  in  common  with  many  great  and 

good  men."  *  The  predilections  of  Mr.  Huskisson  did  not  pre- 
vent him  receiving  the  appointment  of  private  secretary  to  lord 
Gower,  then  the  British  minister  at  Paris.  The  destruction  of  the 
Bastile  was  the  type  of  'the  fall  of  tyranny  to  English  men  and 
also  to  English  women.  Hannah  More  writes  to  Horace  Walpole, 
"  Poor  France  !  though  I  am  sorry  that  the  lawless  rabble  are  so 
triumphant,  I  cannot  help  hoping  that  some  good  will  arise  from  the 
sum  of  human  misery  having  been  so  considerably  lessened  at  one 
blow,  by  the  destruction  of  the  Bastile."f  Dumont  says  that  in 
England,  the  most  free  and  the  most  noble  of  the  nations,  the  de- 
struction of  the  Bastile  had  caused  a  general  joy.  J  He  adds, 
however,  what  is  correct,  that  the  English  government  had  not  per- 
mitted this  event  to  be  celebrated  in  the  theatres.  An  opera, 
founded  upon  the  story  of  the  Iron  Mask,  in  which  that  mystery 
was  blended  with  a  scenic  representation  of  the  destruction  of  the 
Bastile,  was  "  maimed  and  mutilated  by  the  licenser.  §  "  As  might 
be  expected,  Fox  was  in  raptures  at  the  great  event  of  the  i4th  of 
July.  He  writes  to  Fitzpatrick,  on  the  3oth  of  that  month,  "  How 
much  the  greatest  event  it  is  that  ever  happened  in  the  world,  and 
how  much  the  best."||  Even  Burke  expresses  himself  soberly, 
within  three  weeks  after  that  "greatest  event."  He  writes  to  lord 
Charlemont,  on  the  9th  of  August,  "  Our  thoughts  of  everything 
at  home  are  suspended  by  our  astonishment  at  the  wonderful  spec- 
tacle which  is  exhibited  in  a  neighbouring  and  rival  country.  What 
spectators,  and  what  actors  !  England,  gazing  with  astonishment 
at  a  French  struggle  for  liberty,  and  not  knowing  whether  to  blame 

or  to  applaud The  spirit  it  is  impossible  not  to  admire  ;  but 

the  old  Parisian  ferocity  has  broken  out  in  a  shocking  manner."  H" 
There  was  another  remarkable  Englishman,  of  French  extraction, 
who  had  seen  much  of  France,  was  intimate  with  Mirabeau,  and 
who  attempted,  though  French  vanity  rendered  the  attempt  use- 
less, to  imbue  the  National  Assembly,  through  Dumont,  with  some 

*  Appendix  to  Huskisson's  Speeches,  vol.  iu.  p.  647. 

t  "  Memoirs,"  vol.  ii.  p.  170.  t  "Souvenirs  sur  Mirabeau,"  p.  95. 

§  Wright,  vol.  ii.  p.  177.  |l  "  Correspondence,"  vol.  ii.  p.  361. 

If  Prior—"  Life  of  Burke,"  vol.  ii.  p.  41. 


FLUCTUATIONS  OF   ENGLISH   OPINION.  493 

respect  for  salutary  forms,  established  by  the  experience  of  the 
English  Parliament.  Samuel  Romilly,  then  in  his  thirty-second 
year,  wrote  thus  to  Dumont,  on  the  28th  of  July,  1789: — "I  am 
sure  I  need  not  tell  you  how  much  I  have  rejoiced  at  the  revolu- 
tion which  has  taken  place.  I  think  of  nothing  else,  and  please 
myself  with  endeavouring  to  guess  at  some  of  the  important  con- 
sequences which  must  follow  throughout  all  Europe.  I  think  my- 
self happy  that  it  has  happened  when  I  am  of  an  age  at  which  I 
may  reasonably  hope  to  live  .to  see  some  of  those  consequences 
produced.  It  will  perhaps  surprise  you,  but  it  is  certainly  true, 
that  the  Revolution  has  produced  a  very  sincere  and  very  general 
joy  here.  It  is  the  subject  of  all  conversations  ;  and  even  all  the 
newspapers,  without  one  exception,  though  they  are  not  conducted 
by  the  most  liberal  or  the  most  philosophical  of  men,  join  in  sound- 
ing forth  the  praises  of  the  Parisians,  and  in  rejoicing  at  an  event 
so  important  for  mankind."*  The  news  of  the  murder  of  Foulon  and 
his  son-in-law  somewhat  abates  his  enthusiasm.  When  the  events 
of  the  6th  of  October  were  known  in  England,  he  dreads  the  re- 
moval of  the  National  Assembly  to  Paris  :  "  I  fear  for  the  freedom 
of  debate  in  the  midst  of  a  people  so  turbulent,  so  quick  to  take 
alarm,  and  so  much  disposed  to  consider  the  most  trifling  circum- 
stances as  proofs  of  a  conspiracy  formed  against  them."  He  had 
seen  France  during  a  rapid  visit  in  September,  and  had  ventured 
an  opinion  that  "the  horizon  was  overcast."  In  October  he 
writes,  to  express  what  is  a  presentiment  of  a  coming  change  in 
English  feeling : — "  I  find  the  favour  with  which  the  popular  cause 
in  France  is  considered  here,  much  less  than  it  was  when  I  quitted 
England.  We  begin  to  judge  you  with  too  much  severity ;  but 
the  truth  is,  that  you  taught  us  to  expect  too  much,  and  that  we  are 
disappointed  and  chagrined  at  not  seeing  those  expectations  ful- 
filled.'^ 

The  interest  excited  by  the  Revolution  was  not  confined  to 
the  higher  circles,  metropolitan  or  provincial.  Arthur  Young, 
complaining  in  August  of  the  apparent  indifference  to  political 
affairs,  as  exhibited  in  their  conversation,  of  the  French  in  towns 
through  which  he  passed,  says,  "  The  ignorance  or  the  stupidity 
of  these  people  must  be  absolutely  incredible.  Not  a  week  passes 
without  their  country  abounding  with  events  that  are  analyzed 
and  debated  by  the  carpenters  and  blacksmiths  of  England." 
This  was  the  result  of  what  he  frequently  laments,  the  want  of 

*  "  Memoirs,"  p.  272.  t  Ibid.,  p.  282. 


494  HISTORY   OF   ENGLAND. 

that  rapid  and  easy  communication  which  almost  every  part  of  our 
island  enjoyed.  The  carpenters  and  blacksmiths  of  England  had 
some  prejudices  corrected  by  the  early  struggles  of  the  French  to 
be  better  governed.  Their  old  notion  of  the  subjects  of  the 
Grand  Monarque  was,  that  they  ate  frogs  and  wore  wooden  shoes ; 
that  they  were  a  starved  people,  who  had  not  spirit  to  resist  their 
oppressors.  Hogarth  appealed  to  the  popular  notions  when  he 
published  his  prints  of  "The  Invasion  "  in  1756,  and  wrote  under 
them  certain  patriotic  lines  about"  "  lanthorn-jaw  and  croaking 
gut,"  and  "  the  hungry  slaves  have  smelt  our  food."  There  is  a 
remarkable  testimony  to  a  change  in  the  popular  feeling,  supplied 
by  an  intelligent  foreigner  in  1790: — "  The  French  used  to  be  the 
great  object  of  English  national  dislike  and  jealousy ;  but  this 
seems  now  to  be  greatly  abated,  especially  since  the  late  revolution 
in  France  has  given  the  English  rather  a  more  respectful  opinion 
of  the  French  nation."  * 

The  beginning  of  the  year  1790  presents  a  singular  contrast 
between  the  aspect  of  the  Parliament  of  England  and  of  the 
National  Assembly  of  France.  On  the  2ist  of  January,  George 
III.  opened  the  Session  with  a  royal  speech  which  notices  "the 
interruption  of  the  tranquillity  of  other  countries  ;  "  and  expresses 
his  majesty's  deep  and  grateful  sense  of  the  favour  of  Providence, 
in  continuing  to  his  subjects  "the  inestimable  advantages  of  peace, 
and  the  uninterrupted  enjoyment  of  the  invaluable  blessings  which 
they  have  so  long  derived  from  our  excellent  constitution."  On 
the  4th  of  February,  Louis  XVI.  went  to  the  National  Assembly, 
which  held  its  sitting  in  the  Salle  du  Manege,  near  the  Tuileries, 
and  addressed  the  deputies  in  very  remarkable  words,  indicative 
not  only  of  his  acquiescence  in  the  great  changes  which  the 
Assembly  had  decreed,  but  of  his  earnest  desire  to  unite  with  them 
in  building  up  a  solid  and  enduring  fabric  of  public  liberty.  The 
Assembly,  during  the  four  months  in  which  it  had  sat  at  Paris, 
had  passed  some  sweeping  measures  of  reform.  The  most  impor- 
tant was  that  of  a  new  territorial  division  of  the  kingdom.  The  old 
boundaries  of  provinces,  with  their  various  and  conflicting  systems 
of  administration,  were  swept  away ;  and  France  was  distributed 
into  eighty-three  departments,  with  each  its  subdivision  of  districts 
and  cantons.  Throughout  France  one  system  of  administration, 
under  municipal  functionaries  to  be  chosen  by  the  people,  was 
established.  The  king  declared  to  the  Assembly  that  ten  years 
previous  he  had  desired  to  substitute  some  general  system  of 
administration  for  one  founded  upon  ancient  customs  ;  but  to  the 

*  Wendeborn — "  View  of  England,"  vol.  i.  p.  375. 


LOUIS   GOES    TO   THE   NATIONAL   ASSEMBLY.  495 

Assembly  was  due  the  grand  idea,  the  salutary  change,  of  the  new 
departmental  division,  which  he  would  second  by  all  the  means  in 
his  power.     The  privileges  of  the  nobility  had  been  destroyed — 
feudal  rights  had  been  abolished — during  the  sittings  of  Versailles. 
A  change  of  equal  importance  had  since  taken  place.     The  question 
of   church  property,  which  in  France  was  of    enormous  amount, 
had  been  warmly  debated  in  the  early  sittings  of  the   Assembly. 
Talleyrand,  bishop  of  Autun,  contended  that  the  nation  had  the 
right  of  making  a  new   disposition   of   that  property ;  the   Abbe* 
Maury  maintained  that  the  proprietary  rights  of  the  clergy  should 
be  preserved  inviolate.     On  the  2nd  of  November,  it  was  carried 
by  a  large  majority  that  all  ecclesiastical  property  is  at  the  disposal 
of  the  nation,'  but  charged  with  a  suitable  provision  for  the  ex- 
penses of  religious  worship,  for  the  support  of  the  ministers  of 
religion,    and  for  the  relief    of  the  poor.     A  better  income  than 
previously  existed   was  to   be   provided  for   the    inferior    clergy. 
The  religious  houses  were  also  suppressed,  but  provision  was  to 
be  made  for  their  inmates,  whose  vows  were  declared  no  longer 
binding.     The  king,  on  the  4th  of  February,  expressed  in  words 
of  no  common  force,  his  adoption  of  these  changes,  which  were 
essentially  a  Revolution.     "  In  concert  with  the  queen,  who  par- 
takes all  my  sentiments,  I  will  at  the  proper  time  prepare  the  mind 
and  the  heart  of  my  son  for  the  new  order  of  things  that  circum- 
stances have  brought  about."  *     The  address  of  the  king  worked 
up  the  excitable   Parisians  to  a  fever-fit  of  constitutional  loyalty 
manifested  in  universal  oath-taking  and  illuminations,  each  district 
having  its  own  swearing  and  its  candles  in  the  windows.     Never- 
theless, Journalism,  and  Clubs,  and  secret  advisers  in  the  Tuileries 
soon  clouded  this  "  day-star  of  liberty ;  "  and  Englishmen  generally 
felt  that  they  were  safer  from  storms  under  that  tutelary  genius  which 
George  III.  invoked  on  all  occasions,  "  our  excellent  Constitution." 
The  time  was  approaching  when  those  amongst  us  who  looked  with 
apprehension  upon  the  French  Revolution,  should  be  violently  op- 
posed to  those  who  as  violently  became  its  partisans.     The  progress 
of  this  conflict  of  opinions  was  very  gradual ;  but  the  tendencies  to- 
wards a  rupture  of  the  old  ties  of  one  great  political  party  were  soon 
manifest.  The  distinctions  of  Whig  and  Tory  would  speedily  be  ob- 
literated.  Those  who  clung  to  the  most  liberal  interpretation  of  the 
principles  upon  which  our  Revolution  of  1688  was  founded,  would  be 
pointed  at  as  Jacobins — the  title  which  became  identified  with  all  that 
was  most  revolting  in  the  French  Revolution.    The  Tory  became  the 
Anti-Jacobin.     Thus,  through  ten  years  of  social  bitterness,  execra- 

*  The  speech  is  given  in  Thiers'  "  Revolution  Franfaise,"  note  15. 


496  HISTORY   OF    ENGLAND. 

tion  and  persecution  made  England  and  Scotland  very  unpleasant 
dwelling-places  for  men  who  dared  to  think  and  speak  openly. 
Democratic  opinions,  even  in  their  mildest  form,  were  proscribed, 
not  by  a  political  party  only,  but  by  the  majority  of  the  people. 
Liberty  and  Jacobinism  were  held  to  be  synonymous. 

Burke,  Fox,  and  Sheridan,  from  the  commencement  of  the 
administration  of  Pitt,  had  been  closely  united  as  the  chief  leaders 
of  the  Whigs.  They  had  been  brought  intimately  together  as 
managers  of  the  impeachment  of  Hastings,  whose  trial  at  the 
commencement  of  the  Session  of  1790  had  been  proceeding  for* 
two  years.  Fox  and  Burke  had  cordially  joined  with  Wilberforce, 
who  was  supported  by  Pitt,  in  taking  a  prominent  part  in  advocating 
the  total  abolition  of  the  Slave  Trade,  in  1789.  On  the  5th  of 
February,  1790,  when  the  army  estimates  were  moved,  Mr.  Pitt 
held  that  it  was  necessary,  on  account  of  the  turbulent  situation 
of  the  greater  part  of  the  continent,  that  we  should  be  prepared 
for  war,  though  he  trusted  the  system  uniformly  pursued  by  minis- 
ters would  lead  to  a  long' continuance  of  peace.  Mr.  Fox  opposed 
the  estimates  on  the  ground  of  economy  alone.  He  had  no  dread 
of  the  increase  of  the  army  in  a  constitutional  point  of  view.  "  The 
example  of  a  neighbouring  nation  had  proved  that  former  imputa- 
tions on  armies  were  unfounded  calumnies  ;  and  it  was  now  univer- 
sally known  throughout  all  Europe  that  a  man  by  becoming  a  soldier 
did  not  cease  to  be  a  citizen."  On  the  gth  of  February,  when  the 
Report  on  the  Army  Estimates  was  brought  up,  Mr.  Burke  pro- 
claimed, in  the  most  emphatic  terms,  his  views  on  the  affairs  of 
France.  He  opposed  an  increase  of  our  military  force.  He  held 
that  France,  in  a  political  light,  was  to  be  considered  as  expunged 
out  of  the  system  of  Europe.  "  Since  the  House  had  been  pro- 
rogued in  the  summer  much  work  was  done  in  France.  The 
French  had  shown  themselves  the  ablest  architects  of  ruin  that 
had  hitherto  existed  in  the  world.  In  that  very  short  space  of 
time  they  had  completely  pulled  down  to  the  ground,  their  mon- 
archy ;  their  church  ;  their  nobility  ;  their  law ;  their  revenue  ;  their 
army  ;  their  navy ;  their  commerce  ;  their  arts  ;  and  their  manu- 
factures. They  had  done  their  business  for  us,  as  rivals,  in  a 
way  in  which  twenty  Ramilies  and  Blenheims  could  never  have 
done."  Burke  held  that,  in  this  fallen  condition,  it  was  not  easy 
to  determine  whether  France*  could  ever  appear  again  as  a  leading 
power.  Six  years  afterwards  he  described  the  views  he  formerly 
entertained  as  those  of  "  common  speculators."  He  says,  "de- 
prived of  the  old  government,  deprived  in  a  manner  of  all  government, 
France,  fallen  as  a  monarchy,  to  common  speculators  might  have 


DIVISIONS    IN   THE   WHIG   PARTY.  497 

appeared  more  likely  to  be  an  object  of  pity  or  insult,  according 
to  the  disposition  of  the  circumjacent  powers,  than  to  be  the  scourge 
and  terror  of  them  all. "  *  Burke's  alarm,  in  1 790,  was  not  an 
apprehension  of  France  as  a  military  power.  In  the  age  of  Louis 
XIV.  we  were  in  danger  of  being  entangled  by  the  example  of 
France  in  the  net  of  a  relentless  despotism.  "  Our  present  danger, 
from  the  example  of  a  people  whose  character  .knows  no  medium 
is,  with  regard  to  government,  a  danger  from  anarchy ;  a  danger 
of  being  led,  through  an  admiration  of  successful  fraud  and 
violence,  to  an  imitation  of  the  excesses  of  an  irrational,  unprin- 
cipled, proscribing,  confiscating,  plundering,  ferocious,  bloody,  and 
tyrannical  democracy.  "  He  went  on  to  say,  that,"  in  his  opinion, 
the  very  worst  part  of  the  example  set  is  in  the  late  assumption  of 
citizenship  by  the  army."  With  the  highest  compliments  to  the 
masterly  understanding  and  benevolent  disposition  of  his  friend, 
he  regretted  that  Mr.  Fox  had  dropped  a  word  expressive  of 
exultation  at  the  conduct  of  the  French  army.  He  had  no  difference 
about  the  abstract  principle  whether  the  soldiers  were  to  forget 
they  were  citizens.  In  France,  where  the  abstract  principle  was 
clothed  with  its  circumstances,  he  thought  what  was  done  there 
furnished  no  matter  for  exultation,  either  in  the  act  or  the  example. 
Mr.  Fox,  in  reply,  avowed  his  deep  obligations  for  the  improve- 
ment he  had  derived  from  his  friend's  instruction  and  conversation. 
From  him  he  had  learnt  more  than  from  all  the  men  with  whom 
he  had  ever  conversed.  His  friend  might  be  assured  that  they 
could  never  differ  in  principles,  however  they  might  differ  in  their 
application.  He  maintained  his  opinion  of  the  conduct  of  the 
French  soldiers  as  men  who,  "  feelingly  alive  to  a  sense  of  the 
oppressions  under  which  their  countrymen  had  groaned,  disobeyed 
the  despotic  commands  of  their  leaders,  and  gallantly  espoused  the 
cause  of  their  fellow-citizens."  It  was  manifest  that  the  dif- 
ference between  the  two  great  orators  was  something  more  than 
the  application  of  principles.  The  respect  which  each  felt  for  the 
understanding  of  the  other  prevented,  at  that  time,  a  stronger 
expression  of  the  thoughts  that  were  tearing  them  asunder.  A 
smaller  man  interfered  in  the  frendly  contention  ;  and  then  the 
Whig  ranks  were  first  broken  by  Burke's  war-cry.  Sheridan 
elaborately  defended  the  proceedings  of  the  National  Assembly, 
apologized  for  the  excesses  of  the  French  populace,  and  charged 
Burke  with  being  the  advocate  of  despotism.  Burke  rose,  and 
declared,  as  an  inevitable  necessity,  that  henceforth  his  honourable 
friend  and  he  were  separated  in  politics. 

*  "  Letters  on  a  Regicide  Peace,"  Letter  i.  1796. 

VOL.  VI.— 32. 


498  HISTORY   OF   ENGLAND. 

The  influence  of  the  French  Revolution  upon  great  questions 
of  our  domestic  policy  was  very  soon  manifested  in  the  proceed- 
ings of  Parliament.  In  1789,  a  bill  for  the  relief  of  Protestant 
Dissenters  was  rejected  by  a  very  small  majority.  During  the 
prorogation,  the  Dissenters  had  agitated  for  the  repeal  of  the  Cor- 
poration and  Test  Acts,  with  unwonted  earnestness  and  considera- 
ble indiscretion.  Some  of  the  Establishment  were  equally  zealous 
in  the  encouragement  of  a  resistance  to  the  claims  of  the  Dissenters. 
Mr.  Fox,  on  the  2nd  of  March,  proposed  the  abolition  of  these 
religious  tests.  Mr.  Pitt  opposed  the  motion.  Mr.  Burke  de- 
clared that  had  the  repeal  been  moved  for  ten  years  before,  he 
should  probably  have  joined  Mr.  Fox  in  supporting  it.  But  he  had 
the  strongest  reasons  to  believe  that  many  of  the  persons  now  call- 
ing themselves  Dissenters,  and  who  stood  the  most  forward  in  the 
present  application  for  relief,  were  men  of  factious  and  dangerous 
principles,  actuated  by  no  motives  of  religion  or  conscience,  to 
which  tolerance  could  in  any  rational  sense  be  applied.  The  mo- 
tion was  rejected  by  a  very  large  majority.  Two  days  after,  a  proposi- 
tion made  by  Mr.  Flood,  to  amend  the  representation  of  the  people  in 
Parliament,  was  withdrawn ;  the  minister,  who  had  three  times 
advocated  Reform,  now  holding  that  if  a  more  favourable  time 
should  arise,  he  might  himself  bring  forward  a  specific  proposition  ; 
but  he  felt  that  the  cause  of  reform  might  now  lose  ground  from 
being  agitated  at  an  improper  moment. 

There  was  a  warlike  episode  in  May  of  this  year,  which  indica- 
ted, perhaps  advantageously  to  European  powers,  that  Great 
Britain  was  not  prepared  to  endure  insults  to  her  flag.  In  the  pre- 
vious year  two  England  vessels  had  been  seized  by  a  Spanish 
frigate  in  Nootka  Sound,  a  harbour  of  Vancouver  Island,  and  the 
buildings  for  a  settlement  on  that  coast  by  English  traders  had 
been  pulled  down,  by  direction  of  the  Spanish  government,  which 
claimed  all  the  lands  from  Cape  Horn  to  the  6oth  degree  of  latitude. 
His  Catholic  Majesty  long  refused  to  make  reparation.  War  was 
the  tone  of  a  royal  message  to  Parliament.  A  million  was  voted. 
But  Spain  yielded ;  and  at  a  great  crisis  of  European  affairs  we 
were  saved  from  one  of  those  petty  quarrels  which  had  so  often 
been  the  beginning  of  lavish  bloodshed  for  the  attainment  of  small 
commercial  advantages.  Fox  supported  the  minister  in  the  spirited 
conduct  which  averted  this  conflict ;  and  Pitt  had  the  merit  of 
obtaining,  by  resolute  negotiation,  concessions  which  rendered  a 
future  dispute  improbable.  The  possibility  of  a  war  between  Great 
Britain  and  Spain  raised  an  important  question  in  the  French 
Assembly.  The  governments  of  Spain  and  France  were  bound  by 


WAR   WITH   SPAIN   AVERTED. 


499 


treaty  to  mutual  support.  The  question  arose  in  the  Assembly  as 
to  the  power  of  making  peace  or  war.  Mirabeau,  with  surpassing 
eloquence,  prevented  the  legislative  body  from  assuming  that  power 
to  itself ;  and  it  was  resolved  that  war  can  only  be  decided  on  by 
a  decree  of  the  legislative  body,  passed  on  the  formal  proposal  of 
the  king,  and  sanctioned  by  him.  A  resolution  was  carried  by 
acclamation  that  the  French  nation  renounced  for  ever  all  ideas  of 
conquest,  arid  confined  itself  entirely  to  defensive  war. 

France  during  this  summer  presented  the  semblance  of  a  happy 
people  celebrating  the  triumphs  of  liberty  and  equality  by  a  pom- 
pous spectacle  in  Paris;  and  the  reality  of  disturbances  in  the  army 
on  the  eastern  frontier,  with  much  bloodshed  at  Nanci,  and  a  gen- 
eral resistance  amongst  the  higher  clergy  to  the  adhesion  required 
of  them  to  the  new  order  of  ecclesiastical  affairs.  It  was  resolved 
that  the  anniversary  of  the  taking  of  the  Bastille  should  be  hon- 
oured by  a  magnificent  festival  in  the  Champ  de  Mars — a  grand 
Federation  to  which  deputies  should  come  from  every  one  of  the 
eighty-three  departments  of  France.  To  prepare  an  immense  am- 
phitheatre for  this  gathering  from  the  most  remote  parts,  twelve 
thousand  workmen  were  employed.  But  they  worked  too  slowly. 
All  Paris  then  went  forth  to  dig  and  to  move  earth — all  classes,  men 
and  women,  coming  in  the  early  morning  from  their  sections,  and 
returning  home  by  torchlight.  Vast  troops  of  federates  had  arrived 
in  Paris,  and  were  hospitably  lodged.  At  six  o'clock  of  the  morn- 
ing of  the  1 4th  of  July,  three  hundred  thousand  persons,  of  both 
sexes,  dwelling  in  Paris  and  the  neighbourhood,  had  taken  their 
seats  on  the  grass  of  the  amphitheatre,  amidst  a  pouring  rain.  The 
federates  marched  into  the  area,  each  troop  with  the  banner  of  its 
department.  Fifty  thousand  armed  men  were  in  the  space  sur- 
rounded by  the  spectators  on  their  grassy  elevation.  The  king  and 
the  royal  family,  the  president  of  the  National  Assembly,  and  the 
deputies,  were  on  a  raised  seat,  beneath  an  awning  ornamented  with 
fleurs  de  Us.  Mass  was  celebrated  by  the  bishop  of  Autun,  at- 
tended by  three  hundred  priests,  at  an  altar  placed  in  the  centre  of 
the  amphitheatre.  La  Fayette  then  ascended  to  the  altar,  and 
swore,  in  the  name  of  the  troops  and  the  federates,  to  be  faithful 
to  the  nation,  the  law,  and  the  king.  The  president  of  the  Na- 
tional Assembly,  and  each  of  the  deputies,  took  the  same  oath. 
Then  Louis,  standing  in  front  of  his  throne,  said:  "  I, king  of  the 
French,  swear  to  the  nation  to  employ  all  the  power  which  is 
delegated  to  me  by  the  constitutional  law  of  the  state,  to  maintain 
the  Constitution  decreed  by  the  National  Assembly,  and  accepted 
by  me,  and  to  cause  the  laws  to  be  executed."  The  queen  took 


500  HISTORY   OF   ENGLAND. 

the  Dauphin  in  her  arms,  and  presented  him  to  the  multitude.  The 
sun  shone  out ;  the  cannon  boomed  ;  one  universal  shout  went  out 
as  if  to  proclaim  that  France  had  attained  the  consummation  of  its 
felicity.  But  again  a  deluge  of  rain  came  down,  whilst  Talleyrand 
was  blessing  the  banners  of  the  eighty-three  departments.  Again 
sunshine ;  and  illuminations ;  and  dancing  in  the  Champs  Elysees ; 
and  merriment  for  a  week  before  the  federates  went  home — per- 
haps to  think  whether  it  were  possible  that  the  loving  oaths  of  the 
I4th  of  July  would  ever  be  broken. 

The  Sixteenth  Parliament  of  Great  Britain,  having  nearly  com- 
pleted its  full  term  of  seven  years,  was  dissolved  soon  after  the 
prorogation  in  June,  1 790.  The  new  parliament  assembled  on  the 
25th  of  November,  when  Mr.  Addington  was  chosen  Speaker. 
There  was  no  allusion  to  the  affairs  of  France  in  the  king's  Speech. 
That  the  great  events  which  had  taken  place  in  that  country  were 
occupying  the  thoughts  of  public  men,  there  could  be  small  doubt. 
Whilst  the  royal  Speech,  and  the  echoing  Addresses,  dwelt  upon  a 
pacification  between  Austria  and  the  Porte,  upon  dissentions  in 
the  Netherlands,  upon  peace  between  Russia  and  Sweden,  and 
upon  war  between  Russia  and  the  Porte,  the  national  mind  was 
absorbed  almost  exclusively  by  conflicting  sentiments  about  the 
Revolution  in  France.  A  few  weeks  before  the  meeting  of  Parlia- 
ment, Burke  had  published  his  famous  "  Reflections  on  the  Revo- 
lution." *  Probably  no  literary  production  ever,  produced  such  an 
exciting  effect  upon  public  opinion  at  the  time  of  its  appearance, 
or  maintained  so  permanent  an  influence  amongst  the  generation 
to  whose  fears  it  appealed.  The  reputation  of  the  author  as  the 
greatest  political  philosopher  of  his  age  ;  his  predilections  for  free- 
dom, displayed  through  the  whole  course  of  the  American  Revolu- 
tion ;  his  hatred  of  despotic  power,  as  manifested  in  his  unceasing 
denunciations  of  atrocities  in  India;  his  consistent  adherence  to 
Whig  principles  as  established  by  the  Bill  of  Rights — this  acquain- 
tance with  the  character  and  sentiments  of  Burke  first  raised  an 
unbounded  curiosity  to  trace  the  arguments  against  the  struggle 
for  liberty  in  another  country,  coming  from  a  man  who  had  so  long 
contended  for  what  was  deemed  the  popular  cause  at  home.  The 
perusal  of  this  remarkable  book  converted  the  inquirer  into  an 
enthusiast.  In  proportion  as  the  liberal  institutions  of  our  own 
country  were  held  up  to  admiration,  so  were  the  attempts  of  France 
to  build  up  a  new  system  of  government  upon  the  ruins  of  the  old 

*  The  title  of  the  book  indicates  that  its  chief  purpose  was  to  spread  alarm  as  to  the 
prevalence  of  revolutionary  opinions  in  England :  "Reflections  on  the  Revolution  in 
France,  and  on  the  proceedings  in  certain  Societies  in  London  relative  to  that  event." 


BURKE   PUBLISHES   HIS    "REFLECTIONS." 


501 


system,  described  as  the  acts  of  men  devoted  to  "every  descrip- 
tion of  tyranny  and  cruelty  employed  to  bring  about  and  to  uphold 
this  revolution."  To  the  argumentative  power  was  added  an 
impassioned  eloquence,  which  roused  the  feelings  into  hatred  of 
the  anarchists  who  led  the  royal  family  captives  into  Paris  on  the 
6th  of  October,  and  directed  every  sympathy  towards  a  humiliated 
king,  a  proscribed  nobility,  and  a  plundered  church.  Burke  was 
accused  of  abandonment  of  his  old  principles,  as  he  grew  more 
and  more  strongly  opposed  to  the  French  Revolution,  even  before 
the  period  of  its  greatest  excesses.  He  who  produced  the  most 
elegant  and  temperate  answer  to  the  "  Reflections,"  most  truly  said  : 
"  The  late  opinions  of  Mr.  Burke  furnished  more  matter  of  aston- 
ishment to  those  who  had  distantly  observed,  than  to  those  who 
had  correctly  examined,  the  system  of  his  former  political  life.  An 
abhorrence  for  abstract  politics,  a  predilection  for  aristocracy,  and 
a  dread  of  innovation,  have  ever  been  among  the  most  sacred 
articles  of  his  public  creed."  *  Coleridge,  at  a  period  when  his 
Gallican  enthusiasm  had  entirely  sobered  down,  complains  of  "  the 
errors  of  the  aristocratic  party,"  in  lamenting  with  tragic  outcries 
the  injured  monarch  and  the  exiled  noble,  and  displaying  a  disgust- 
ing insensibility  to  the  sufferings  and  oppressions  of  the  great  mass 
of  the  population  ;  and  he  adds,  in  a  note,  "  The  extravagantly 
false  and  nattering  picture  which  Burke  gave  of  the  French  nobility 
and  hierarchy,  has  always  appeared  to  me  the  greatest  defect  of  his, 
in  so  many  respects,  invaluable  work.'1  f  Another  eminent  thinker 
of  our  own  day  has  thus  given  his  opinion  of  the  causes  of  Burke's 
indifference  to  the  condition  of  the  governed,  and  his  sympathies 
with  the  governing  :  "  It  is  the  natural  tendency  of  men  connected 
with  the  upper  ranks  of  society,  and  separated  from  the  mass  of 
the  community,  to  undervalue  things  which  only  affect  the  rights 
or  the  interests  of  the  people.  Against  this  leaning,  to  which  he  had 
yielded,  it  becomes  them  to  struggle."  t 

Mackintosh,  writing  in  1791,  says:  "No  series  of  events  in 
history  have  probably  been  more  widely,  malignantly,  and  syste- 
matically exaggerated  than  the  French  commotions."  He  adds, 
with  reference  to  the  furious  indignation  with  which  Burke  had 
spoken  of  some  popular  atrocities  :  "  The  massacres  of  war,  and 
the  murders  committed  by  the  sword  of  justice,  are  disguised  by 
the  solemnities  which  invest  them."  §  "  The  massacres  of  war  " 

*  Mackintosh— "Vindiciae  Gallic*,"  Introduction. 

t  "  The  Friend,"  Essay  I. 

$  Lord  Brougham—"  Statesmen  of  the  time  of  George  III."— Art.  "  Burke." 

§  "  Vindici*  Gal."— Mackintosh,  Miscellaneous  Works,  vol.  iii.  p.  32. 


502  HISTORY  OF   ENGLAND. 

were  never  more  fearfully  exhibited  than  at  the  season  when  the 
revolutionists  of  France  were  held  up  to  execration,-and  the  savage 
murders  perpetrated  by  the.  ministers  of  vengeance  let  loose  by 
Catherine  of  Russia  provoked  no  parliamentary  denunciation,  and 
excited  little  public  feeling.  On  the  anniversary  of  our  Saviour's 
nativity,  in  1790,  Suwirrow,  the  Russian  general,  wrote  to  his  court : 
"  Glory  to  God  and  to  the  Empress,  Ismail  is  ours."  It  is  not 
necessary  to  read  the  two  cantos  of  "  Don  Juan,"  which  Byron 
devoted  to  the  siege  of  Ismail,  to  shudder  at  the  atrocities  which 
have  been  perpetrated  by  established  authorities.  This  fortress, 
the  key  of  the  Lower  Danube,  was  stormed ;  the  Turks  obstinately 
resisted  till  midnight,  and  then  the  conquering  Russians  entered 
the  body  of  the  place.  The  rising  sun  exhibited  such  a  spectacle 
in  Ismail  as  had  not  for  several  ages  shocked  the  feelings  of  man- 
kind. In  the  morning,  when  the  Russian  generals  put  an  end  to 
the  carnage,  thirty  thousand  of  the  Turkish  population,  of  all  ages, 
sexes,  and  conditions,  had  perished.* 

Mirabeau,  in  January,  1791,  was  named  President  of  the  Na- 
tional Assembly.  During  the  previous  year  he  had  pursued  a 
systematic  course  of  opposition  to  the  measures  of  the  extreme 
democratic  party.  He  supported,  as  we  have  seen,  the  king's 
prerogative  as  to  the  right  of  peace  and  war.  He  opposed  the 
violent  measures  that  were  contemplated  with  regard  to  emigrants. 
He  maintained  a  complete  independence  of  clubs  and  mobs.  He 
saw  that  the  Revolution  was  passing  out  of  the  hands  of  the  few 
who  were  qualified  to  guide  it  to  a  moderate  course,  into  the  man- 
agement of  factions,  who  were  ready  to  stifle  the  comparatively 
sober  voice  of  the  legislative  body.  He  dreaded  the  turbulence 
of  those  who  were  becoming  a  real  and  a  terrible  power,  as  the  Club 
of  the  Friends  of  the  Constitution  (who,  from  their  place  of  meeting, 
the  Hall  of  the  Jacobins'  Convent,  came  to  be  known  as  Jacobins) ; 
and  of  another  body,  still  more  violent,  the  Club  of  the  Cordeliers. 
There  were  in  Paris,  too,  somewhat  more  than  a  hundred 
Journals.  Mirabeau  was  himself  a  journalist,  and  counselled  in  this 
character  adherence  to  constitutional  moderation.  Marat,  the  repre- 
sentative of  the  fury  of  the  Revolution,  was  for  erecting  eight  hun- 
dred gibbets,  and  for  hanging  Mirabeau  the  first,  as  the  chief  of  the 
advocates  of  order.  Nevertheless,  the  wonderful  energy,  the  in- 
domitable courage,  the  overwhelming  eloquence  of  Mirabeau  not 
only  made  him  supreme  in  the  National  Assembly,  but  gave  him 
the  hearty  allegiance  of  the  people,  in  their  universal  recognition 
of  his  intellectual  supremacy.  The  very  post-boys  called  the  best 

*  There  is  a  very  graphic  account  of  this  event  in  the  "  Annual  Register,"  1791. 


MIRABEAU'S   NEGOTIATIONS   WITH   THE   COURT.          503 

horse  of  a  team— the  horse  that  did  the  most  work— their  Mira- 
beau.  The  king  and  queen  of  France  began  to  feel  that  their 
safety  might  depend  upon  the  efforts  of  this  man,  who  had  done  so 
much  to  destroy  the  ancient*order  of  things,  but  in  whom  the  will, 
and  probably  the  power,  abided,  of  saving  the  monarchy.  Mirabeau 
secretly  met  Marie  Antoinette  at  St.  Cloud,  to  which  palace  the 
royal  family  had  removed  in  the  summer  of  1 790,  and  there  enjoyed 
some  little  freedom.  He  came  away  with  the  conviction  that  she 
was  the  only  man  of  the  family.  He  was  poor ;  and  he  doubtless 
accepted  great  presents  from  some  source,  for  his  style  of  living 
suddenly  became  extravagantly  luxurious.  Louis  wrote  to  Bouille 
that  he  had  paid  the  services  of  Mirabeau  at  an  enormous  price. 
Dumont  believes  that  Mirabeau  thought  himself,  on  receiving  pay- 
ment, as  an  agent  who  could  accomplish  salutary  ends  with 
adequate  means.  He  also  says,  that  Mirabeau's  only  object  was  to 
have  the  ministerial  power  in  his  hands  ;  that  he  had  no  notion  of  a 
counter  revolution;  that  his  desire  was  to  re-establish  the  royal  au- 
thority, with  a  national  representation  ;  that  he  even  would  have  en- 
deavoured to  revoke  the  decree  of  the  National  Assembly  which 
had  abolished  the  nobility  ;  and  that  he  was  dissatisfied  with  the 
part  he  had  himself  taken  as  to  the  question  of  the  clergy.  When 
Mirabeau  entered  upon  his  functions  as  President  of  the  National 
Assembly,  the  versatility  of  his  talent  was  signally  displayed. 
He  was  no  longer  the  impassioned  tribune  of  the  people.  He  was 
the  moderator  of  a  tumultuous  body — the  impartial  supporter  of 
orderly  proceedings — the  dignified  assertor  of  the  respect  due  to  the 
legislature.  But  the  physical  health  of  this  extraordinary  man  was 
gone.  Dumont  parted  with  Mirabeau,  on  quitting  Paris  after  the 
nomination  of  his  friend  to  the  presidency  of  the  Assembly.  "  If  I 
believed  in  slow  poisons,"  said  Mirabeau,  "  I  should  think  I  was 
poisoned.  I  am  perishing.  I  am  consuming  with  a  slow  fire." 
His  mode  of  life,  Dumont  pointed  out  to  him,  would  have  long 
before  killed  any  man  not  so  robust  as  he  was  : — unremitting  work; 
imprudent  regimen.  Intellectual  and  sensual  excess,  Dumont 
might  have  added — those  destructive  agencies  that,  combined, 
always  destroy  the  victims  who  unite  the  loftiest  ambition  to  the 
grossest  indulgence.  "  You  should  have  been  a  salamander,"  said 
Dumont,  "  to  live  in  a  devouring  flame  without  being  consumed." 
The  image  was  founded  upon  a  popular  error  applied  to  a  great 
truth.  When  Dumont  quitted  Mirabeau,  the  dying  man,  to  whom 
an  intense  egotism  was  pardonable,  said,  "  We  shall  never  meet 
again.  When  I  am  gone,  they  will  know  how  to  value  me.  The 
misfortunes  which  I  have  arrested  will  rush  in  from  all  parts  over 


504  HISTORY  OF   ENGLAND. 

France.  The  criminal  faction  which  trembled  before  me  will  no 
longer  have  any  bridle.  The  Commons  won  a  victory  in  declaring 
themselves  a  National  Assembly,  of  which  they  have  never  ceased 
to  shew  themselves  unworthy.  They  have  desired  to  govern  the 
king,  instead  of  governing  by  him ;  but  very  soon  neither  he  nor 
they  will  govern.  A  vile  faction  will  dominate  over  all,  and  fill 
France  with  horrors."  *  Mirabeau  survived  only  three  months 
after  he  had  uttered  this  prophetic  speech  to  Dumont.  He  re- 
peated the  same  sentiments  to  Talleyrand.  He  died  on  the  2nd 
of  April.  The  pomp  of  his  funeral ;  the  procession  of  nearly  all 
Paris  to  the  church  of  St.  Genevieve  ;  the  mournful  music ;  the 
intermittent  cannon  ;  the  thousand  torches  ;  the  deep  and  solemn 
silence  of  the  countless  multitude  ;  have  often  been  described,  as 
the  tribute  of  a  great  nation  to  the  greatest  of  its  citizens.  By 
a  decree  of  the  Assembly,  the  church  of  St.  Genevieve  was  to  be 
called  the  Pantheon — was  to  bear  the  inscription,  Aux  Grands 
Hommes  la  Patrie  reconnaissante.  Mirabeau  was  the  first  occu- 
pant of  the  temple  set  apart  by  a  grateful  country  as  the  tomb  of 
its  great  men.  In  November,  1793,  by  a  decree  of  the  Convention, 
his  body  was  disinterred  as  that  of  an  unworthy  aristocrat. 

Six  months  elapsed  between  the  publication  of  Burke's  "  Reflec- 
tions "  and  his  final  separation  from  his  party,  involving  an  irrevo- 
cable breach  of  friendship  with  Fox.  The  night  of  the  6th  of 
May  exhibited  a  scene  m  the  House  of  Commons  of  no  ordinary 
interest.  From  that  time  this  country  became  divided  into  two 
hostile  bands,  each  upholding  opinions  that  were  calculated  to  make 
men  irrational  partisans  rather  than  calm  reasoners  ;  that  opposed 
exaggerated  alarm  to  mistaken  enthusiasm  ;  that  rendered  the  ma- 
jority persecutors  and  the  minority  agitators.  The  passions  then 
spread  through  the  country  inspired  a  panic  about  property,  and  a 
dread  of  revolution,  when,  as  had  been  truly  said,  "  the  people  were 
more  heart-whole  than  they  had  been  for  a  hundred  years  previous- 
ly ;  "  f  and  these  passions  drove  a  minister,  really  a  friend  to  civil 
and  religious  liberty,  into  acts  of  tyranny,  whose  influence  long 
survived  the  immediate  occasion  of  their  exercise,  and  produced 
fears  and  hatreds  which  arrested  the  march  of  social  improvement 
fora  quarter  of  a  century.  On  the  I5th  of  April,  Mr.  Fox  had 
incidentally  spoken  in  somewhat  extravagant  terms  about  "  the  new 
Constitution  of  France."  He  admired  it,  "  considered  altogether, 
as  the  most  stupendous  and  glorious  edifice  of  liberty  which  had 
been  erected  on  the  foundation  of  human  integrity  in  any  time  or 

*  "  Souvenirs  sur  Mirabeau,"  p.  186. 

t  Coleridge — "Table  Talk,"  vol.  ii.  p.  192. 


BURKE   AND   FOX. 


5°5 


country."  There  had  been  animated  debates  on  a  proposition  of 
Mr.  Pitt  for  the  government  of  Canada,  which  contemplated  the 
establishment  of  two  Houses  of  Assembly,  one  for  the  Upper  and 
one  for  the  Lower  Province.  In  the  discussion  of  this  question, gen- 
eral principles  of  representative  government  were  naturally  brought 
under  view.  On  the  6th  of  May,  upon  the  question  in  Committee 
that  the  Quebec  Bill  should  be  read  paragraph  by  paragraph,  Mr. 
Burke  took  occasion  to  raise  his  voice  against  the  possibility  of 
sending  to  our  colonies  "  a  cargo  of  the  Rights  of  Man  ;  "  and  then 
entered  upon  some  recent  circumstances  in  Paris — the  interference 
of  the  people  to  prevent  the  king  going  to  St.  Cloud,  as  he  pro- 
posed to  do.  The  orator  was  proceeding  in  this  strain,  when  he  was 
called  to  order.  Five  times  he  attempted  to  proceed  in  explana- 
tion of  his  views  on  the  French  Revolution,  and  five  times  was  he 
interrupted  by  members  of  the  Whig  party — his  old  associates. 
Burke  pertinaciously  held  his  ground.  The  irony  of  Fox,  and  the 
remonstrance  of  Grey,  moved  him  less  than  the  incessant  calls  to 
order  of  smaller  men.  At  last  he  exclaimed  : 

"The  little  dogs  and  all, 
Tray,  Blanch,  and  Sweetheart,  see,  they  bark  at  me." 

Lord  John  Russell,  quoting  this  anecdote  from  the  "  Life  of  Lord 
Sidmouth,"  says  that  Burke  made  his  exclamation  "  with  the  grief, 
and  somewhat,  perhaps,  of  the  insanity  of  Lear."  The  notion  of 
attributing  to  insanity  the  extreme  opinions  of  the  most  powerful 
mind  of  that  age,  has  been  maintained  with  much  earnestness,  and 
some  attempts  at  proof.*  To  a  certain  extent  it  is  true  that 
Burke's  mind,  "  once  so  steady,  so  little  swayed  by  prejudice  and 
passion,  reeled  under  the  pressure  of  events  which  turned  the 
brain  of  thousands."  But  it  may  also  be  said,  that  the  aspirations 
for  a  new  asra  of  happiness  for  mankind  also  turned  the  brains  of 
sober  men,  to  regard  only  what  was  full  of  hope  and  promise  in 
that  Revolution,  and  to  divert  their  eyes  from  its  crimes  and  fol- 
lies. The  extreme  views  which  produced  enthusiasts  on  either 
side  are  very  justly  pointed  out  by  a  French  lady,  in  her  corre- 
spondence with  Romilly:  "We  have  had  Mr.  Paine's  work  in 
answer  to  Mr.  Burke :  it  is  the  opposite  extreme  of  madness. "f 
On  the  night  of  the  6th  of  May,  Burke,  after  his  burst  of  indig- 
nation at  "  the  little  dogs  "  in  answer  to  the  taunt  of  Fox,  that 
"minute  discussions  on  great  events,  without  information,  did  no 
honour  to  the  pen  that  wrote,  or  the  tongue  that  spoke,  the  words," 

*  See  Buckle — "  Civilization  in  England,"  pp.  424  to  431. 
t  "  Mr.  Paine's  work  "  was  "  The  Rights  of  Man,"  Part  I. 


506  HISTORY   OF    ENGLAND. 

addressed  him  no  longer  as  "his  honourable  friend."  He  com- 
plained of  the  asperity  with  which  he  had  been  treated  that  night. 
He  had  differed  from  Mr.  Fox  on  former  occasions  ;  but  no  differ- 
ence of  opinion  had  ever  before  interrupted  their  friendship. 
There  was  no  loss  of  friendship,  Fox  whispered  ;  Burke  instantly 
exclaimed  that  he  had  done  his  duty  at  the  price  of  his  friend :  "  their 
friendship  was  at  an  end."  This  was  too  much  for  the  kind  na- 
ture of  Fox.  He  wept,  and  was  for  some  minutes  unable  to  speak. 
Then  there  was  mutual  explanation ;  and  mutual  recrimination. 
Mr.  Curwen,  the  member  for  Carlisle,  relates  a  circumstance  which 
shows  how  intense  was  the  hostility  of  Burke  to  any  who  exhibited 
even  a  slight  indication  of  admiring  or  tolerating  the  principles  of 
the  French  Revolution  ;  "  The  most  powerful  feelings  were  mani- 
fested on  the  adjournment  of  the  House.  While  I  was  waiting  for 
my  carriage,  Mr.  Burke  came  to  me  and  requested,  as  the  night 
was  wet,  I  would  set  him  down.  As  soon  as  the  carriage-door  was 
shut,  he  complimented  me  on  my  being  no  friend  to  the  revolution- 
ary doctrines  of  the  French  ;  on  which  he  spoke  with  great  warmth 
for  a  few  minutes,  when  he  paused  to  afford  me  an  opportunity  of 
approving  the  view  he  had  taken  of  those  measures  in  the  House. 
At  the  moment  I  could  not  help  feeling  disinclined  to  disguise  my 
sentiments  ;  Mr.  Burke,  catching  hold  of  the  check-string,  furi- 
ously exclaimed,  '  You  are  one  of  these  people !  Set  me  down.' 
With  some  difficulty  I  restrained  him  ; — we  had  then  reached  Char- 
ing-cross  ;  a  silence  ensued,  which  was  preserved  till  we  reached 
his  house  in  Gerard-street,  when  he  hurried  out  of  the  carriage 
without  speaking." 

In  the  debate  on  the  proposed  Repeal  of  the  Test  and  Corpo- 
ration Acts,  on  the  2nd  of  March,  1790,  Mr  Burke  read  extracts 
from  a  sermon  of  Dr.  Price,  and  from  the  writings  of  Dr.  Priestley 
and  other  Non-conformists  ;  inferring  from  certain  passages  that 
the  leading  preachers  among  the  Dissenters  were  avowed  enemies 
to  the  Church  of  England,  and  that  thence  our  establishment  ap- 
peared to  be  in  much  more  serious  danger  than  the  Church  of 
France  was  in  a  year  or  two  ago.*  The  "  Reflections  on  the  Rev- 
olution "  diffused  this  alarm  more  extensively  through  the  country' 
Burke,  in  reprobating  the  harangue  at  the  chapel  in  the  Old  Jewry 
of  Dr.  Price,  said  that  "  politics  and  the  pulpit  are  terms  that  have 
little  agreement ;  "  that  "  no  sound  ought  to  be  heard  in  the  Church 
but  the  healing  voice  of  Christian  charity;"  that  political  divines, 
"  wholly  unacquainted  with  the  world  in  which  they  are  so  fond  of 
meddling,  and  inexperienced  in  all  its  affairs,  have  nothing  of  poli- 

*  "  Parliamentary  History,"  vol.  xxviii.  col.  439. 


THE    BIRMINGHAM    RIOTS.  507 

tics  but  the  passions  they  excite."  But  he  addressed  these  just 
remarks  to  "  political  theologians,"  such  as  Dr.  Price  and  Dr. 
Priestley,  who  preached  from  heterodox  pulpits ;  not  to  those  who 
from  the  pulpits  of  the  establishment  made  the  French  Revolution 
the  constant  theme  of  their  invective ;  and  whose  churches  "  re- 
sounded with  language  at  which  Laud  would  have  shuddered,  and 
Sacheverel  would  have  blushed."*  The  clamour  was  at  last  got  up, 
that  the  Church  was  in  danger.  There  were  results  of  this  spirit 
which  were  perhaps  more  disgraceful  to  the  English  character  than 
the  violence  of  the  Parisian  populace  in  the  attack  upon  the  Bas- 
tile  or  the  march  from  Versailles.  It  was  a  lower  and  a  more 
contemptible  fanaticism  than  had  been  evoked  by  the  first  call  in 
France  to  fight  for  freedom,  that  produced  the  Riots  at  Birming- 
ham which  broke  out  on  the  I4th  of  July,  1791. 

Dr. Joseph  Priestley,  in  1780,  became  the  minister  of  the  princi- 
pal Unitarian  congregation  in  Birmingham.  He  was  ardent  in  his 
political  views,  having  written  an  answer  to  Burke's  "  Reflections," 
and  he  did  not  hesitate  to  avow  his  opposition  to  the  Church,  in  his 
zeal  to  obtain  what  he  deemed  the  rights  of  Dissenters.  But  in  his 
private  life  he  was  worthy  of  all  respect,  and  in  his  scientific  pursuits 
had  attained  the  most  honourable  distinction.  But  even  as  a  poli- 
tician he  avowed  himself  a  warm  admirer  of  the  English  Constitu- 
tion, as  the  best  system  of  policy  the  sagacity  of  man  had  been 
able  to  contrive,  though  its  vigour  had  been  impaired  by  certain 
corruptions.  He  published,  in  1791,  "Familiar  Letters  to  the 
Inhabitants  of  Birmingham  " — a  work  in  which,  according  to 
Robert  Hall,  "  the  seeds  of  that  implacable  dislike  were  scattered  " 
which  produced  the  outrages  that  we  shall  briefly  relate. 

On  the  nth  of  July,  according  to  a  royal  proclamation  of  the 
27th  of  that  month,  "  a  certain  scandalous  and  seditious  paper  was 
printed  and  published  in  the  town  of  Brimingham,"  for  the  discov- 
ery of  the  author  of  which  a  reward  of  one  hundred  pounds  was 
offered.  This  handbill  called  upon  the  people  to  celebrate  on  the 
1 4th  the  destruction  of  that  high  altar  and  castle  of  despotism,  the 
Bastile ;  but  not  to  forget  that  their  own  parliament  was  venal ; 
the  ministers  hypocritical;  the  clergy  legal  oppressors;  the  reign- 
ing family  extravagant ;  the  crown  too  weighty  for  the  head  that 
wears  it.  This  paper,  says  the  proclamation,  was  printed  and 
published  in  the  town  of  Birmingham. f  William  Hutton,  a  cautious 
man,  says  that  it  was  fabricated  in  London,  brought  to  Birming 
ham,  and  a  few  copies  privately  scattered  under  a  table  at  an  inn. 
On  that  i4th  of  July,  about  eighty  persons  assembled  at  a  tavern, 

»  Mackintosh,  vol.  iii.  p.  165.  1  See  "  Annual  Register,"  1791- 


508  HISTORY   OF   ENGLAND. 

known  as  Dadley's,  to  commemorate  this  anniversary ;  and  at  the 
Swan  Inn,  some  magistrates,  and  persons  opposed  to  the  celebra- 
tionists,  met  to  drink  "  Church  and  King."  There  was  a  small  mob 
about  Dadley's  travern,  who  hissed  and  hooted ;  and  there  was 
another  mob  around  the  Swan.  The  dinner  went  off  quietly 
amongst  the  friends  of  French  liberty,  the  King  and  Constitution 
being  duly  toasted,  and  afterwards  the  National  Assembly  of  France. 
After  the  company  had  separated,  a  rabble  broke  into  the  tavern  in 
search  of  Dr.  Priestley,  who  had  not  dined  there,  crying  out  that 
"  they  wanted  to  knock  the  powder  out  of  Priestley's  wig."  The 
loyal  company  at  the  adjacent  Swan  huzzaed ;  and  it  is  affirmed 
that  a  gentleman  said,  "  Go  to  the  Meetings."  In  another  hour 
Priestley's  chapel,  in  New  Street,  called  the  New  Meeting-House, 
was  on  fire.  This  work  accomplished,  the  Old  Meeting-House  was 
also  quickly  in  a  blaze.  Dr.  Priestley  lived  at  Fair  Hall,  about  a 
mile  and  a-half  from  the  town.  He  and  his  family  had  fled  from 
mob  vengeance  ;  but  his  house  was  destroyed,  and  his  books  burnt, 
with  his  manuscripts  and  his  philosophical  instruments.  The  dis- 
graceful scene  has  been  related  by  some  with  more  or  less  of 
apology  for  a  fury  which  it  is  held  that  Priestley  had  provoked  ;  and 
by  others  with  more  or  less  of  indignation  against  a  brutal  intoler- 
ance which  it  is  alleged  was  encouraged  by  loyal  churchmen. 
There  was  a  young  man  then  dwelling  at  Birmingham,  who  was  a 
member  of  the  congregation  then  under  the  care  of  Dr.  Priestley, 
and  to  some  extent  was  his  pupil ;  for  the  younger  members  of 
Priestley's  flock  received  instruction  from  him  on  moral  and  relig- 
ious subjects.  In  after  life  he  would  relate  to  his  children  the 
scene  which  he  witnessed  on  that  night  of  July,  1791.  One  of  the 
family,  since  so  honourably  distinguished,  has  given  this  interest- 
ing notice  of  a  memorable  incident  in  his  father's  life  :  "  My  father 
formed  a  strong  attachment  to  Priestley,  and  when  the  famous, 
or  rather  infamous,  riots  of  1791  broke  out,  he,  with  a  small  body 
of  his  fellow-pupils,  repaired  to  Dr.  Priestley's  house,  which  they 
offered  to  defend  against  the  mob.  To  their  sore  disappointment 
their  services  were  declined.  The  doctor  had  scruples  as  to  the 
lawfulness  of  withstanding  a  religious  persecution  by  force — the 
why  and  wherefore  of  this  distinction  between  repelling  civil  injuries 
and  religious,  which  indeed  are  only  civil  injuries  on  religious 
grounds,  my  father  never  comprehended.  His  companions  went 
away,  perhaps  to  escort  their  good  pastor  and  his  family,  whose 
lives  would  not  have  been  secure  against  the  ruffians  coming  to 
demolish  their  home  and  property.  My  father  barred  the  doors, 
closed  .the  shutters,  made  fast  the  house  as  securely  as  he  could 


THE   BIRMINGHAM   RIOTS.  509 

against  the  expected  rioters,  and  then  awaited  their  arrival.  He 
has  often  described  to  me  how  he  walked  to  and  fro  in  the  dark- 
ened rooms,  chafing  under  the  restriction  which  had  been  put  on 
him  and  his  friends.  He  was  present  when  the  mob  broke  in,  and 
witnessed  the  plunder  and  destruction,  and  the  incendiary  fire  by 
which  the  outrage  was  consummated.  Lingering  near  the  house, 
he  saw  a  working-man  fill  his  apron  with  shoes,  with  which  he  made 
off.  My  father  followed  him,  and  as  soon  as  the  thief  was  alone, 
collared  him,  and  dragged  him  to  the  gaol,  where  he  had  the  mor- 
tification to  witness  the  man  quietly  relieved  of  his  booty,  and  then 
suffered  to  depart,  the  keeper  informing  my  father  that  he  had  had 
orders  to  take  in  no  prisoner  that  night."  *  The  burnings  and 
plunderings,  invariably  of  the  houses  of  Dissenters,  continued  till 
the  night  of  Sunday,  the  I7th,  in  Birmingham  and  the  neighbour- 
hood. On  the  1 5th,  the  house  of  Mr.  Ryland,  at  Easy  Hill,  was 
burnt  down  ;  six  or  seven  of  the  rioters,  who  had  drunk  themselves 
insensible  with  the  booty  of  the  wine-cellar,  perishing  in  the  flames. 
Mr.  Ryland  was  a  friend  of  Priestley — a  man  devoted  to  the  public 
interests  of  Birmingham,  and  emphatically  described  as  "  a  friend 
to  the  whole  human  race."  On  that  day,  Bordesley  Hall,  the  resi- 
dence of  Mr.  Taylor,  another  dissenter,  was  burnt.  The  warehouse 
of  William  Hutton  was  then  plundered ;  and  on  the  next  morning 
his  country-house,  at  Bennett's  Hill,  was  set  on  fire  and  consumed. 
Five  other  houses  of  Dissenters,  whether  Presbyterians,  Baptists, 
or  Unitarians,  were  that  day  burnt  or  sacked.  Justices  of  the 
peace  sat  in  conclave ;  squires  made  speeches  to  the  mobs,  telling 
them  they  had  done  enough.  The  Birmingham  magistrates  issued 
a  placard,  addressed  to  "  Friends  and  Brother  Churchmen."  en- 
treating them  to  desist ;  for  that  the  damage,  which  already  amount- 
ed to  ,£100,000,  would  have  to  be  paid  by  the  parishes.  On  the 
Sunday  there  were  burnings  of  chapels  and  private  houses  in  the 
neighbourhood  of  Birmingham ;  and  then  three  troops  of  Light 
Dragoons  rode  into  the  town,  having  come  in  one  day  from  Not- 
tingham, and  this  disgraceful  exhibition  was  at  an  end.  Five  of 
the  rioters  were  tried  at  the  assizes  at  Worcester,  for  offences  com- 
mitted near  Birmingham,  but  only  one  was  convicted.  A  larger 
number  were  tried  at  the  Warwick  Assizes,  and  four  were  sen- 
tenced to  death.  Three  of  the  whole  number  were  executed.  Every 
attempt  was  made  to  impede  the  conviction  of  the  rioters.  The 
prosecutions  were  confined  to  the  ignorant  mob,  whose  passions 
were  undoubtedly  inflamed  by  their  superiors  in  station.  There 

*  Autobiography  of  Thomas  Wright  Hill— with  "  Continuation  of  Mr.  Hill's  Life,  by 
his  son,  Matthew  Davenport  Hill."— Privately  printed,  1859. 


£10  HISTORY   OF   ENGLAND. 

was  no  zealot  prosecuted  of  the  many  whose  offences  were  undoubt- 
edly as  great  as  that  of  the  madman,  lord  George  Gordon,  in  1780. 
There  was  in  Birmingham  a  hateful  spirit  of  slavishness  and  fero- 
city, in  the  guise  of  loyalty  and  religion,  which  unhappily,  to  some 
extent,  pervaded  the  whole  kingdom.  The  atrocities  were  almost 
justified  from  the  pulpit  as  "a  judgment."  One  of  the  most  elo- 
quent of  Dissenters — one  strongly  opposed  to  Priestley's  theologi- 
cal opinions — published  in  1791  a  tract,  in  which  he  says,  that  to 
the  unenlightened  eyes  of  posterity  "it  will  appear  a  reproach,  that  in 
the  eighteenth  century — an  age  that  boasts  its  science  and  improve- 
ment— the  first  philosopher  in  Europe,  of  a  character  unblemished, 
and  of  manners  the  most  mild  and  gentle,  should  be  torn  from  his 
family,  and  obliged  to  flee,  an  outcast  and  a  fugitive,  from  the  mur- 
derous hands  of  a  frantic  rabble;  but  when  they  learn  that  there 
were  not  wanting  teachers  of  religion  who  secretly  triumphed  in 
these  barbarities,  they  will  pause  for  a  moment,  and  imagine  they 
are  reading  the  history  of  Goths  or  of  Vandals."  * 

*  Robert  Hall — "  Christianity  consistent  with  a  love  of  freedom,  being  an  answer  to  a 
Sermon  by  the  Rev.  John  Clayton."  1791. 


FLIGHT   FROM   PARIS   OF  THE   KING  AND   HIS    FAMILY.       511 


CHAPTER  XXVII. 

Flight  from  Paris  of  the  king  and  his  family. — The  National  Assembly  after  the  discovery 
of  the  flight. — Hatred  of  Royalty. — Thomas  Paine. — National,  or  Constituent,  As- 
sembly at  an  end. — Meeting  of  the  Legislative  Assembly — The  Declaration  of  Pilnitz. 
— French  princes  and  emigrants  at  Coblentz.— Opening  of  Parliament.— Pacific  Speech. 
—Pitt's  display  of  British  prosperity.— The  Slave  Trade.— Pitt's  eloquence.— The 
Libel  Law. — Attempts  to  form  a  Coalition. — Proclamation  against  Seditions. — Chau- 
velin  and  Lord  Grenville- — Partition  of  Poland. 

WHILST  from  the  night  of  the  I4th  July  to  the  night  of  the  iyth, 
the  rabble  of  Birmingham  were  shouting  "  Church  and  King,"  and 
plundering  and  burning  chapels  and  houses,  the  rabble  of  Paris, 
many  thousands  in  number,  were  assembled  on  Sunday,  the  I7th, 
in  the  Champ  de  Mars,  clamouring  for  the  deposition  of  the  king, 
and  manifesting  their  patriotism  by  hanging  two  men  denounced  as 
spies.  The  magistrates  of  Birmingham  looked  smilingly  on  the 
loyal  and  orthodox  havoc ;  but  the  authorities  of  Paris,  with  their 
mayor,  Bailly,  at  their  head,  resolved  to  put  down  this  mob-dictation, 
and,  hoisting  the  red  flag  of  martial  law,  to  disperse  the  multi- 
tudes with  volleys  of  musketry.  What  has  produced  this  demand 
for  the  deposition  of  the  king?  He  has  attempted  to  fly  from  his 
good  people  of  Paris.  He  broke  out  of'  his  prison-house,  and  he 
has  been  brought  back  again.  He  has  been  suspected  of  a  plan  to 
escape,  when  he  desired  to  keep  Easter  at  St.  Cloud  ;  and  a  fierce 
mob,  when  he  was  seated  with  the  queen  in  his  carriage,  then  pre- 
vented their  departure  from  the  Tuileries  although  La  Fayette  was 
desirous  to  make  way  for  them  by  force.  It  was  known  that  an 
Austrian  army  was  gathering  on  the  frontiers  ;  that  the  royal  prin- 
ces, d'Artois  and  Conde,  were  surrounded  by  emigrants,  ready  to 
return  in  arms.  "  Citizens,"  wrote  Marat,  the  most  influential  of 
the  journalists  because  the  most  ferocious,  "  watch  closely  around 

the  palace The  genius  of  Austria  is  there,  hidden  in 

committees  over  which  Antoinette  presides.  They  correspond  with 
foreigners,  and  furnish  the  armed  tyrants  who  are  assembling  on  your 
frontier  with  gold  and  materials  of  war."  The  writings  of  Marat 
echoed  the  denunciations  of  the  Clubs.  The  National  Assembly, 
and  the  National  Guard,  were  growing  less  and  less  popular  with 
the  anarchists.  "  What  is  La  Fayette  doing  ?  "  asked  Marat,  "  is  he 


512  HISTORY   OF   ENGLAND. 

a  dupe  or  an  accomplice  ?  Why  does  he  leave  the  avenues  of  the 
palace  free  ?"  The  suspicions  thus  excited  in  the  populace  natu- 
rally produced  a  greater  vigilance  in  La  Fayette.  For  some  time  the 
whole  of  the  interior  of  the  Tuileries  was  under  the  watchfulness  of 
the  National  Guard  ;  and  La  Fayette  and  his  officers  were  constant- 
ly about  the  palace,  often  till  a  late  hour.  The  royal  family,  too, 
were  surrounded  by  unfaithful  menials.  A  waiting-woman  had  for 
several  months  been  watching  the  queen  ;  had  seen  her  jewel-boxes 
empty,  and  had  conjectured  that  the  royal  diamonds  had  left  France. 
She  reported  her  suspicions  to  an  aide-de-camp  of  La  Fayette ; 
and  for  several  nights  a  stricter  watch  had  been  kept  within  and 
around  the  palace.  A  secret  correspondence  had  been  maintained 
between  the  king  and  the  marquis  de  Bouille,  the  commander  of 
the  royalist  army  in  the  frontier  provinces  of  Champagne,  Lorraine, 
and  Alsace ;  but  the  loyalty  of  a  few  regiments  only  could  be  relied 
upon.  It  was  arranged  between  Louis  and  his  faithful  general  that 
the  king  should  leave  Paris  on  the  night  of  the  ipth  of  June ;  and 
De  Bouille  took  his  measures  of  placing  relays  of  horses  on  the 
road,  and  detachments  to  guard  the  royal  family  at  certain  stations 
through  which  they  were  to  pass  on  their  way  to  Montmedy,  at 
which  fortress  the  general  had  formed  a  camp  where  the  fugitives 
would  be  safe.  The  arrangements  were  disturbed  by  the  delay  of 
one  day  in  setting  forth  ;  and,  as  in  many  of  the  minor  occurrences 
of  life,  the  misadventures  of  an  hour  or  two  were  fatal  to  success. 
The  count  de  Fersen,  a  Swiss,  was  admitted  into  the  confidence  of 
the  king ;  and  he  accomplished  the  business  of  obtaining  a  pass- 
port for  a  Russian  baroness,  travelling  home,  with  a  waiting- 
woman,  a  valet,  and  two  children  ;  and  he  has  had  a  new  coach  built ; 
and  has  engaged  horses.  All  at  last  is  ready  for  a  start.  The 
Russian  baroness  is  Madame  De  Tourzel,  the  gouvernante  of  the  two 
royal  children ;  her  waiting-woman  is  the  queen  ;  the  valet  is  the 
king.  The  king's  sister,  Elizabeth,  is  of  the  party  as  travelling 
companion.  Three  of  the  devoted  soldiers  of  the  king,  who  had 
belonged  to  the  disbanded  body-guard,  were  admitted  into  the  con- 
fidence of  count  Fersen,  and  it  was  arranged  that  they  were  to 
mount  behind  the  carriage,  as  some  sort  of  protection. 

The  king  and  queen  received  at  their  usual  hour,  on  the  even- 
ing of  the  2Oth  of  June,  those  who  were  accustomed  to  wait  on  them 
before  they  retired  to  rest.  They  dressed  themselves  in  the  clothes 
prepared  for  their  disguise  ;  and  when  a  midnight  stillness  reigned 
around  left  the  Tuileries,  but  not  all  at  once.  A  lady  in  a  hood 
had  come  out  from  a  small  door,  leading  two  children — a  visitor  of 
some  one  of  the  household,  no  doubt.  These  pass  into  the  open 


THE   NATIONAL  ASSEMBLY.  P!, 

space  before  the  Tuileries,  called  the  Carrousel,  and  thence  into  a 
s treet  where  a  glass-coach  is  waiting.     Another  lady  comes  out 
also  hooded,  and  enters  the  same  coach.     A  stout  man  now  reaches 
the   capacious    carriage.     One  of  the.  party  is  still  wantincr_the 
waiting-maid.     She,  in  a  gipsy-hat,  attended  by  a  servant,  is  about 
to  join  them,  when  the  carriage  of  La  Fayette,  with  torch-bearers, 
appears.     He  has  been  hastily  sent  for,  upon  some  report  from  his 
aide-de-camp,     The  waiting-maid  stands  up  under  the  arch  and 
sees  the  well-known  face.     She  is  herself  unobserved  ;  but  is  some- 
what flurried.     The  fair  one  and  her  attendant  take  the  wrono-  road 
and  cross  the  Pont  Royal  to  the  other  side  of  the  Seine.     They 
wander  about  the  long  Rue  du  Bac  in  great  perplexity,  but  at  last 
make  their  way  over  the  river  again,  and  find  the  coach  waiting 
upon  the  quai.     Count  Fersen  is  the  royal  hackney  coachman.  He 
drives  furiously  off,  but  they  have  to  go  to  a  distant  part  to  find  the 
travelling  carriage.     At  last  they  have  passed  the  dark  and  narrow 
streets  of  the  city,  have  reached  the  Boulevard,  and  at  the  Porte  St. 
Martin  the  travelling  carriage  is  waiting.     Fersen  is  again  upon  the 
box,  with  a  German  coachman,  who  will  be  trusty  ;  and  after  some 
time  he  receives  the  grateful  adieus  of  those  for  whom  he  has 
risked  so  much,  and  leaves  them  to  make  his  own  way  to  Brussels. 
Another  carriage   is  at   Bondy,   with  boxes   and  waiting-women. 
Through  the  summer-night,  the  heavy  coach,  with  six  horses,  is 
lumbering  on  towards    Chalons,  where  it  arrives,  having   found 
proper  relays,  about  five  in  the  afternoon  of  the  2ist. 

At  six  o'clock  in  the  morning  following  that  midnight  when  La 
Fayette  has  looked  round  the  Tuileries,  and  can  discover  nothing 
wrong  he  is  roused  with  the  news  that  the  king  and  royal  family 
are  gone.  Paris  is  alarmed,  and  is  quickly  in  motion  :  but  there  is 
no  riot  or  outrage.  The  Assembly  meets,  and  declares  its  sitting 
permanent.  A  letter  has  been  found  addressed  by  the  king  to  the 
t  National  Assembly,  in  which  he  goes  through  the  chief  events  of 
*  the  Revolution  ;  describes  the  personal  indignities  he  had  under- 
gone, and  says  that,  finding  it  impossible  for  him  to  effect  any  good, 
or  to  prevent  any  evil,  he  has  sought  to  recover  his  liberty,  and  to 
reach  a  place  of  safety  for  himself  and  his  family.  The  Assembly 
confirmed  an  order  which  had  been  previously  issued  by  La  Fayette, 
which  enjoined  all  functionaries  to  arrest  the  fugitives  ;  and  at  once 
assumed  the  powers  of  an  executive  government.  The  news  of  the 
flight  of  the  king  reached  London  on  the  25th,  when  George  Rose 
thus  wrote  to  Wilberforce  : — "  The  National  Assembly  has  acted 
in  a  collected  manner,  and  with  prudence  in  tueir  situation.  They 
have  given  assurances  to  the  foreign  ministers  of  firmness,  continu- 
VOL.  VI.— 33- 


514  HISTORY   OF   ENGLAND. 

ance  of  friendship,  &c.,  and  have  ordered  the  great  seal  (we  shall 
be  told  like  our  phantom  during  the  regency)  to  be  put  to  all  instru- 
ments which  require  the  royal  authority."* 

The  king's  route  may  be  easily  traced.  The  heavy  carriage, 
called  a  "  Berline,"  is  somewhat  remarkable.  Escorts  of  dragoons 
have  been  hanging  about  on  the  road  from  early  morning  ;  and  no 
one  knows  what  they  are  waiting  for.  Suspicion  is  roused.  As 
the  evening  draws  on,  a  courier  rides  through  the  village  of 
Sainte-Menehould;  and  then  the  lumbering  vehicle  with  its  six  post- 
horses  rolls  in,  and  stops  at  the  post-house.  The  master  of  the 
post  has  been  to  Paris.  He  looks  hard  into  the  carriage.  He 
fancies  he  has  seen  the  lady  in  the  gipsy-hat  in  some  public  place. 
Another  face  is  familiar  to  him,  from  the  engraved  head  on  the  new 
assignat.  He  is  sure  the  stout  man  is  the  king.  The  carriage 
moves  on  ;  and  this  vigilant  post-master,  by  name  Drouet,  and  a 
trusty  companion,  hurry  after  it  upon  fleet  hackneys.  The  escort 
that  followed  the  royal  fugitives  from  Sainte-Menehould  is  impeded 
by  the  people  at  Clermont,  who  have  been  roused  by  Drouet. 
But  the  village  of  Varennes  is  reached  by  Louis  and  his  family 
about  four-and-twenty  hours  after  they  had  been  wandering  out  of 
the  Tuileries  through  dark  ways  into  a  dark  future.  The  small 
town  of  Varennes  is  divided  by  the  river  Aire.  Relays  of  horses 
prepared  for  the  travellers  are  in  the  upper  town.  The  couriers 
can  find  no  horses  in  the  lower  town,  where  the  carriage  is  waiting. 
For  half-an-hour  the  wearied  and  anxious  sitters  in  the  "  Berline  " 
listen  with  impatience  for  the  sound  of  horses'  feet.  Two 
horsemen  have  dashed  past  them  over  the  bridge.  Drouet  is  an 
old  dragoon,  and  knows  something  of  barricades.  He  rides  into 
the  town,  obtains  help,  and  the  bridge  over  the  Aire  is  soon  rendered 
impassible  by  an  overturned  cart.  At  length  the  carriage  drives 
up,  the  post-boys  having  been  induced  \o  proceed  with  their 
jaded  hacks.  Passports  are  demanded  by  half-a-dozen  National 
Guards,  led  by  the  inexorable  Drouet.  Resistance  is  vain  ;  and 
Louis,  his  queen,  his  sister,  his  children,  jind  the  gouvernante  are 
handed  into  the  house  of  the  Procureur  of  the  town,  named  Sausse, 
a  grocer.  Refreshments  are  asked  for  by  the  king  ;  and  he  relishes 
bread  and  cheese,  and  a  bottle  of  Burgundy.  The  alarm-bell  is 
rung;  the  people  hurry  out  of  their  beds  ;  the  house  is  surrounded. 
Louis  feels  confident  that  a  large  force  will  arrive  from  M.  de 
Bouille  for  his  deliverance.  A  squadron  of  hussars  is  at  hand  ;  but 
they  have  received  no  orders.  The  night  is  passed  in  terrible 
uncertainty.  In  the  morning,  National  Guards  are  assembled  in 

*  "  Witberforce  Correspondence,"  vol.  i.  p.  So. 


HATRED   OF   ROYALTY.  515 

great  numbers,  and  La  Fayette's  aide-de-camp  gaflops  into  Varennes. 
It  is  all  over.  Even  Bouille  flies  across  the  frontier.  The  Berline 
is  turned  round ;  and  is  soon  on  the  road  to  Paris,  with  the  unfor- 
tunate family  within,  and  the  couriers  bound  with  ropes  upon  the 
box.  Three  or  four  thousand  men,  armed  with  pikes  and  muskets, 
surround  the  carriage.  As  the  cavalcade  slowly  went  on,  the 
people  in  the  villages  uttered  reproaches  and  threats  to  the  king 
and  queen.  They  bore  the  insults  with  that  calmness  which  marked 
their  demeanour  through  all  their  subsequent  heavy  troubles.  Two 
Commissioners  from  the  National  Assembly,  Petion  and  Barnave, 
met  them  on  the  road ;  and  their  interference  probably  saved  the 
lives  of  the  unhappy  family  from  the  rage  of  barbarous  crowds. 
At  seven  o'clock  in  the  evening  of  Saturday,  the  captives  re-entered 
the  Tuileries.  There  was  something  more  terrible  than  even  the 
clamour  of  a  mob,  in  the  mode  of  their  reception,  as  they  passed 
through  the  streets  of  Paris.  An  Englishman  has  described  the 
scene  :  "  Profound  silence  was  recommended  to  the  people  on  the 
entrance  of  the  royal  family  ;  and  it  was  in  general  observed.  I 
stood  in  the  Champs  Elysees,  on  the  edge  of  the  road,  from  three 
till  near  eight,  and  I  never  saw  more  tranquillity,  or  even  indif- 
ference, on  any  occasion.  An  officer  passed  us  about  half-an-hour 
before  the  king's  arrival,  and  called  out  as  he  passed,  '  Chapeau 
sur  tete.'  This  order  was  punctually  obeyed.  In  all  the  conver- 
sation I  heard,  not  a  symptom  of  pity  or  sympathy  appeared,  nor 
much  resentment."  *  A  placard  had  been  everywhere  affixed 
which,  in  a  few  words,  prescribed  the  popular  demeanour  required 
by  those  who  in  this  week  of  alarm  had  preserved  Paris  from 
anarchy :  "  Whoever  shall  applaud  the  king  shall  be  flogged  ; 
whoever  shall  insult  him  shall  be  hanged."  f  The  semblances  of 
a  monarchical  government  were  to  be  maintained  a  little  longer. 

The  flight  of  the  king  was  the  occasion  of  an  unmistakeable 
demonstration  of  the  contentions  that  were  likely  to  arise  between 
those  who  desired  to  maintain  the  constitution  to  which  the  king 
had  sworn,  and  the  party — a  minority  in  the  Assembly,  but  over- 
powering in  the  clubs — who  sought  the  abolition  of  the  monarchy, 
or  the  deposition  of  the  existing  monarch.  In  the  popular  temper 
the  hatred  of  royalty  was  displayed  during  the  five  days  of  the 
king's  absence  from  Paris,  by  pulling  down  the  signs  over  the  shops 
that  indicated  the  patronage  of  the  Court.  "Rot"  was  no  longer  a 
name  to  attract  customers.  There  was  in  Paris  an  Englishman 
who  had  become  hateful  at  home  as  the  expounder  of  "  The  High's 

*  Trail  to  Romilly,  June  27. 

t  Thiers— "  Histiore  de  la  Revolution,"  livre  iv. 


JlG  HISTORY   OF    ENGLAND. 

of  Man."  Thomas  Paine — a  stay  maker  of  Thetford  in  Norfolk, 
afterwards  an  exciseman  ;  then  a  settler  in  America,  who  stimulated 
the  revolt  of  the  colonies  by  his  writings  ;  an  agent  of  the  Congress, 
employed  in  France  towards  the  close  of  the  war ;  a  man  of 
various  talents,  a  powerful  but  coarse  writer,  an  ingenious  mechanic 
— was,  in  June,  1791,  the  guest  of  Condorcet,  the  philosophical 
patrician,  who  had  become  an  ardent  republican.  After  the  peace 
Paine  had  been  received  with  some  respect  in  England,  and  even 
Hurke  admitted  him  to  a  sort  of  intimacy.  liut  he  hated  his  native 
country,  and  its  institutions.  Intensely  vain,  he  believed  that  his 
writings  had  produced  the  American  Republic  ;  and  he  fancied, 
that  his  mission  was  to  establish  a  republic  in  France.  He  asserted 
that,  if  he  had  the  power,  he  would  destrsy  all  the  books  in  existence 
which  only  propagated  error,  and  would  re-construct  a  new  system 
of  ideas  and  principles,  with  his  own  "  Rights  of  Man  "  as  its  foun- 
dation.* In  the  week  of  the  flight  of  Louis,  Paine  wrote  in  Eng- 
lish a  proclamation  to  the  French  nation,  which,  being  translated, 
was  affixed  to  all  the  walls  of  Paris.  It  was  an  invitation  to  the 
people  to  profit  by  existing  circumstances,  and  establish  a  Republic. 
Dumont  perhaps  ascribes  too  much  to  the  influence  of  such  a  pro- 
duction, when  he  says  that  the  audacious  hand  of  Paine  sowed  the 
seed  which  germinated  in  many  heads.f  Many  persons  of  con- 
dition, Condorcet  amongst  the  number,  were  of  opinion  that  the 
moment  when  the  king  had  forfeited  the  confidence  of  the 
nation  was  favourable  to  the  establishment  of  a  republic  A 
majority  of  the  Assembly  were  resolved  that  the  disloyalty  which 
had  been  increased  so  fearfully  by  the  king's  attempt  to  leave 
Paris,  if  not  France,  should  not  interfere  with  the  establishment 
of  the  Constitution.  This  had  now,  after  a  long  process,  been  elab- 
orated into  a  complete  digest  of  all  the  principles  which  were 
held  to  be  necessary  for  the  happy  existence  of  a  form  of  govern- 
ment so  just  and  so  harmonious,  that  it  would  command  the 
obedience  and  admiration  of  all  who  were  to  administer  it  and  of 
all  who  were  to  live  under  it.  Dumont  has  described  this  consti- 
tution as  in  truth  a  monster : — "  It  had  too  much  of  a  republic 
for  a  monarchy,  and  too  much  of  a  monarchy  for  a  republic,  The 
king  was  a  hors  d'ceuvre" — a  somewhat  superfluous  dish,  such  as 
the  anchovy  served  between  the  soup  and  the  meat.  The  populace 
did  not  comprehend  these  refinements  ;  and  so,  as  we  have 
mentioned,  on  the  I7th  of  July,  the  mobs  of  St.  Antoine  filled  the 
Champ  de  Mars,  signing  petitions  for  the  deposition  of  the  king; 
And  the  once  popular  mayor  hoisted  the  red  flag,  and  dispersed 

*  Dumont — "  Souvenirs,"  p.  231.  t  Hid.,  p.  226. 


NATIONAL   ASSEMBLY  AT  AN    END,  517 

them  by  sword  and  bullet.  Bailly,  La  Fayette,  and  a  majority  of 
the  Assembly,  began  to  fear  the  Jacobins  more  than  they  feared 
the  royalists.  They  began  to  see  that,  by  the  popular  outrages, 
and  the  restraints  which  had  been  imposed  upon  the  king,  he  had 
been  driven  to  despair.  They  wished  to  retrace  their  steps  ;  to 
make  the  sovereign  a  real  power  in  the  state,  instead  of  a 
puppet.  They  found  that  it  was  easier  to  destroy  than  to  re- 
establish. The  popularity  which  they  had  acquired  as  destructives 
was  lost  when  they  began  to  be  conservatives.  The  forms  were, 
however,  to  be  gone  through  to  establish  the  anomalous  Constitu- 
tion. On  the  5th  of  August,  the  multifarious  document  was 
presented  to  the  Assembly  by  a  committee,  who  had  been  for  many 
months  engaged  in  classifying  and  revising  the  various  decrees 
which  had  been  promulgated.  On  the  3rd  of  September  it  was 
presented  to  the  king  by  sixty  members  of  the  Assembly ;  and  on 
the  I4th,  Louis  declared  his  solemn  acceptance  of  what  he  consid- 
ered, and  not  unjustly,  his  humiliation.  "  Vive  le  Rot"  was  again 
heard  in  the  streets.  The  Assembly  is  to  be  dissolved  on  the  3oth 
of  September,  and  a  new  body  of  representatives,  whose  elections 
have  been  going  on  throughout  all  France,  is  to  meet  on  the  ist  of 
October,  and  to  be  called  the  Legislative  Assembly.  Seven  hun- 
dred and  forty-five  members  are  to  be  chosen  by  primary  assem- 
blies, themselves  chosen  by  every  man  of  twenty-five  years  of  age 
in  every  canton,  who  had  paid  direct  taxes  equal  to  three  days' 
labour.  The  electors  of  the  deputies  were  to  be  the  possessors  of 
a  certain  income,  or  the  renters  of  a  house  of  a  certain  value.  No 
member  of  the  first  Assembly  was  eligible  to  be  elected  for  the 
second.  No  member  of  the  Legislative  Assembly  was  allowed  to 
be  a  functionary  of  the  Executive  Government.  The  sittings  of 
the  Assembly  were  to  be  permanent,  leaving  no  power  to  the  king 
to  convoke  the  body,  or  to  prorogue  it.  And  so  some  of  the  best 
and  most  moderate  men  who  formed  the  first  States-General,  are 
to  be  replaced  by  men  of  provincial  reputation,  chiefly  of  the  legal 
profession  ;  and  the  violent  men  of  the  old  Assembly  are  to  find  fit 
exercise  for  their  powers  in  the  Jacobin  clubs. 

The  Legislative  Assembly  quickly  arranged  into  two  defined 
parties — the  right  side  (cdte  droif)  and  the  left  side  (c&tl  gaucke), 
with  a  fluctuating  body  known  as  the  centre.  The  c6t£  droit  com- 
prised the  supporters  of  the  Constitution,  whose  opinions  were 
generally  those  of  the  middle  class.es,  and  were  represented  in  the 
Club  of  the  Feuillans.  The  Girondins,  or  deputies  from  the  depart- 
ment of  Gironde,  of  whom  Vergniaud  was  the  most  eloquent,  with 
Brissot  and  Condorcet,  two  of  the  Paris  deputies,  were  the  types 


518  HISTORY   ©F    ENGIAND. 

41 

of  the  more  moderate  of  the  cot'e  gauche.  The  extreme  men  of 
this  left  side  were  in  intimate  connection  with  the  Jacobin  Club, 
and  the  Club  of  the  Cordeliers  ;  and  the  mobs  of  Paris  were  conse- 
quently at  their  command.  Robespierre  was  the  presiding  spirit 
of  the  Jacobins,  as  Danton  was  of  the  Cordeliers.  The  extreme 
men  of  the  Assembly  were  called  the  Mountain,  from  their  seats 
on  the  topmost  benches  of  the  cdtt gauche.  There  is  a  Municipal- 
ity, too,  in  Paris,  which  has  more  active  power,  for  good  or  evil, 
than  the  Assembly.  At  the  elections  of  November,  Petion  has 
been  chosen  mayor  of  Paris,  in  preference  to  La  Fayette  ;  and  in 
that  common  council,  where  there  is  much  haranguing,  Danton  is  a 
leading  speaker.  But  the  Mother-Society  of  Friends  of  the  People, 
sitting  in  the  old  Hall  of  the  Jacobins,  with  all  the  appliances  of  a 
parliament — president,  secretaries,  a  tribune  for  fiery  speakers,  and 
large  galleries  for  excited  men  and  women — this  terrible  Society, 
with  its  branch  Societies  in  every  town  and  village  of  France, 
"  forms,"  to  use  those  words  of  La  Fayette  which  he  spoke  too 
late,  "  a  distinct  corporation  in  the  middle  of  the  French  people, 
whose  power  it  usurps  in  subjugating  its  representatives."  Robes- 
pierre moved  and  carried  the  self-denying  ordinance  of  the  first 
Assembly,  which  prevented  its  members  being  re-elected,  that  he 
might  dominate  in  another  place  over  thousands  of  fanatical  wor- 
shippers of  first  principles  of  liberty  and  equality,  who  would  risk 
any  perils  of  anarchy  and  bloodshed  for  an  idea,  as  he  was  ready 
to  do  out  of  the  purest  and  most  disinterested  benevolence. 

When  the  Legislative  Assembly  met  on  the  ist  of  October,  a 
puerile  contest,  but  not  without  its  significance,  ensued  between 
the  Constitutionalists  and  the  Republicans.  The  king  should  not 
be  addressed  as  "  Sire,"  or  as  "  Majesty,"  contended  one  party  ; 
he  should  not  sit  in  a  gilded  chair ;  the  members  should  not  be 
uncovered  in  his  presence.  Louis  felt  that  it  was  intended  to 
affront  him,  and  he  determined  that  the  Assembly  should  be  opened 
by  his  ministers.  The  republican  spirit  became  moderated,  and 
the  constitutionalists  became  more  assured,  for  the  National  Guard 
intimated  their  resolve  that  the  revolution  should  go  no  further.  On 
the  7th  of  October  the  king  proceeded  to  the  Assembly,  and  delivered 
a  speech  which  seemed  to  give  him  back  the  loyalty  which  he  had 
lost.  There  must  be  harmony,  he  said,  between  the  king  and  the 
legislative  body;  that  thus  the  property  and  the  creed  of  every  man 
would  be  protected,  and  no  one  would  have  a  pretence  for  staying 
away  from  a  country  in  which  the  laws  should  be  faithfully  executed 
and  the  rights  of  all  respected.  Confidence  returned  to  the  king 
and  queen  ;  and  they  thought  their  calamities  were  over  when  they 


THE   DECLARATION   OF   PILNITZ.  519 

went  that  night  to  the  Opera,  and  were  received  with  unwonted 
shout  ,  and  even  with  the  tears  of  those  who  were  melted  at  seeing 
a  mother,  so  long  wretched,  apparently  at  ease  and  happy  as  her 
little  boy  sate  on  her  lap,  and  looked  upon  the  people  without  fear. 
In  this  autumn  of  1791,  whatever  might  be  the  apprehensions 
amongst  a  portion  of  the  British  nation  of  the  progress  of  French 
doctrines,  the  prime-minister  preserved  an  imperturbable  serenity, 
which  he  appears  to  have  communicated  to  the  inferior  members  of 
the  government.  The  editor  of  the  "  Diaries  and  Letters  "  of  the 
Secretary  of  the  Treasury,  says,  "  It  is  a  remarkable  feature  of  this 
correspondence,  that  while  the  revolutionary  mania  in  Paris  was 
disclosing  its  horrors  and  crimes  more  and  more,  we  look  in  vain 
to  these  letters  [those  of  Rose  and  Pitt]  for  any  intimation  of 
what  was  going  on.  There  is  not  a  symptom  of  alarm  or  indigna- 
tion, or  even  astonishment;  both  writers  seem  to  be  wholly  intent 
upon  the  interior  administration  of  the  country,  in  a  calm  and 
undisturbed  atmosphere."  *  Lord  Sidmouth,  in  his  old  age,  was 
fond  of  relating  an  anecdote  of  the  period  when,  as  Mr.  Addington, 
he  was  Speaker  of  the  House  of  Commons.  In  September,  1791, 
Pitt,  for  the  first  time,  invited  Burke  to  dine  with  him  ;  Lord  Gren- 
ville  and  Addington  were  the  only  other  guests  in  Downing  Street. 
"  After  dinner,  Burke  was  earnestly  representing  the  danger  which 
threatened  the  country  from  the  contagion  of  French  principles, 
when  Pitt  said,  '  Never  fear,  Mr.  Burke  ;  depend  on  it  we  shall  go 
on  as  we  are  till  the  day  of  judgment : ' — '  Very  likely,  sir,'  replied 
Burke, '  it  is  the  day  of  no  judgment  that  I  am  afraid  of.'  "  f  The 
internal  condition  of  Great  Britain  was  so  essentially  prosperous, 
and  the  abuses  which  required  a  reform  were  so  limited  in  compar- 
ison of  the  evils  that  in  France  demanded  a  revolution,  that  Mr. 
Pitt  might  well  have  looked  without  serious  alarm  upon  the  clubs 
that  sympathised  with  the  French  Assembly,  and  upon  writers 
that  attempted  to  spread  the  doctrines  of  the  Jacobins.  Neither 
would  a  peace-loving  minister,  who  was  at  heart  a  friend  to  liberty, 
take  any  part  with  the  despotic  sovereigns  of  the  continent,  or  with 
the  emigrant  princes  who  were  dreaming  of  conquering  and  aveng- 
ing the  Revolution.  On  the  24th  of  August,  the  emperor  of  Ger- 
many and  the  king  of  Prussia  had  met  at  the  Chateau  de  Pilnitz, 
the  summer  residence  of  the  elector  of  Saxony,  who  was  their  host. 
The  count  d'  Artois  arrived,  to  urge  the  intervention  of  these  sov- 
ereigns to  rescue  his  brother,  the  king  of  France,  out  of  the  hands 
of  rebellious  subjects :  and  especially  sought  to  move  the  emperor 

*  "  Diaries,  &c.,  of  the  Right  Hon.  George  Rose,"  voL  i.  p.  109. 
t  "Life  of  Lord  Sidmouth,"  vol.  i.  p.  71- 


520  HISTORY   OF    ENGLAND. 

in  the  cause  of  that  emperor's  sister,  the  humiliated  queen.  Out 
of  these  interviews  came  the  famous  declaration  of  Pilnitz,  which 
appealed  to  the  other  European  powers  to  make  common  cause 
with  the  emperor  and  the  king  of  Prussia,  and  to  employ,  conjointly 
with  them,  "  the  most  efficacious  means,  proportioned  to  their  forces 
for  enabling  the  king  of  France  to  strengthen,  with  the  most  perfect 
liberty,  the  basis  of  a  monarchical  government,  equally  conforma- 
ble to  the  rights  of  sovereigns  and  the  welfare  of  the  French  na- 
tion." The  German  courts  were  not  agreed  upon  that  policy  of 
armed  intervention  which  was  thus  timidly  threatened.  Prussia 
was  reluctant  to  adopt  the  warlike  views  of  Austria.  Catherine  of 
Russia  and  Gustavus  of  Sweden  agreed  to  raise  an  army,  which 
Spain  was  to  subsidize ;  and  they  sent  plenipotentiaries  to  the 
emigrant  princes  at  Coblentz.  Mr.  Pitt  wisely  kept  aloof  from 
counsels  in  which  the  timid  and  the  rash  appeared  equally  likely  to 
precipitate  a  war  of  opinions.  He  maintained  the  truly  elevated 
position  of  the  minister  of  a  country  enjoying  its  own  constitutional 
liberty,  which  could  neither  sympathize  with  the  regal  despotism 
that  would  crush  all  freedom,  nor  with  the  popular  violence  that 
would  overthrow  all  order. 

There  can  be  no  doubt  that,  about  the  close  of  1790,  the 
king  of  France  was  in  correspondence  with  foreign  courts,  either 
directly  or  through  the  emigrant  princes  and  nobles.  But  in  1791, 
after  his  solemn  acceptance  of  the  Constitution,  brought  about 
by  his  conviction  that  his  escape  from  the  nets  in  which  he 
was  bound  was  impossible,  he,  apparently  with  sincerity,  earnestly 
desired  the  emigrants  to  disarm.  His  injunctions  were  treated 
with  contempt,  as  coming  from  a  prince  under  durance.  The 
Declaration  of  Pilnitz  had  raised  a  violent  spirit  of  indignation 
amongst  nearly  every  class  and  every  party  of  Frenchmen,  against 
the  threat  of  any  interference  with  their  domestic  concerns.  For 
a  short  time  the  Constitution  and  the  Monarchy  seemed  capable 
of  being  worked  together ;  but  the  delusion  soon  came  to  an 
end.  The  king  has  an  absolute  veto  according  to  the  Constitu- 
tion. The  orators  of  the  Palais  Royal  and  the  mobs  of  the 
street  knew  very  early  in  the  revolution  what  Veto  meant.  Mira- 
beau  advocated  the  Veto.  His  carriage  stopped  at  a  book- 
seller's door,  and  a  crowd  surrounded  it,  crying  out  to  the  great 
orator,  "  You  are  the  father  of  the  people — you  might  save  us — if 
the  king  has  the  Veto  we  have  no  need  of  the  National  Assembly 
—-we  are  slaves."  *  On  the  gth  of  November  the  Legislative  Assem- 
bly decrees  that  all  emigrants  shall  be  "  suspect  of  conspiracy," 

*  Dumont — "  Souvenirs,"  p.  108. 


TALLEYRAND'S   VISIT  TO   LONDON.  521 

that  is,  that  they  shall  be  outlawed  unless  they  return  before  the 
following  new  year's  day ;  that  the  revenues  of  the  absent  French 
princes  should  be  sequestered ;  that  priests  who  would  not  take 
the  oaths  should  forfeit  their  pensions,  and  sustain  other  pen- 
alties. The  king  to  these  decrees  ought  to  apply  his  Veto,  say  the 
friends  of  the  monarchy.  The  king's  ministers  and  the  Assembly 
argue  these  matters  with  fluent  pertinacity.  The  time  will  come 
when  this  question  will  be  settled  by  a  force  stronger  than  words. 
The  king  now  feels  strong  enough  to  refuse  his  consent  to  these 
decrees  in  their  entirety. 

Whilst  some  of  the  leading  emigrants  of  .rank  were  gathered 
round  the  French  princes  at  Coblentz,  a  large  number  of  the  nobil- 
ity, and  of  the  higher  orders  of  clergy,  were  living  in  obscurity  in 
England,  many  in  very  painful  poverty.  The  grave-stones  in  some 
of  the  suburban  churchyards  of  London  used  to  present  the 
memorials  of  many  a  great  family  who  found  obscure  resting-places 
in  the  foreign  land  which  had  afforded  them  the  means  of  a  humble 
existence.  In  1791,  even  after  the  unsuccessful  flight  to  Varennes, 
many  of  these  emigrants  had  still  hope  and  confidence.  Charles 
Butler,  in  August  of  that  year,  having  called  on  Burke,  saw  him 
surrounded,  as  he  usually  was  at  that  time,  by  many  of  the  French 
nobility,  and  discoursing  eloquently  on  the  horrors  of  the  Revolu- 
tion. One  of  his  hearers  interrupted  him  with  the  ill-timed  ques- 
tion, "  But  when  shall  we  return  to  France  ? "  "  Never,"  was  the 
reply ;  "  False  hopes,"  continued  the  orator,  "  are  not  the  money 
that  I  keep  in  my  drawer."  "  Coquins  !  "  exclaimed  one.  "  Yes," 
said  Burke,  "  they  are  coquins,  but  they  are  the  most  terrible  coquins 
that  the  world  has  known."  * 

In  the  winter  of  1791-2,  M.  de  Talleyrand  visited  London,  to 
make  his  observations  upon  the  temper  of  British  statesmen,  and 
to  dispose  the  ministry  to  regard  the  French  Constitution  without 
alarm.  According  to  the  self-denying  decree  of  the  National 
Assembly,  he  was  restrained  from  holding  office.  But  he  was  no 
less  the  agent  of  the  French  government.  The  British  cabinet 
had  appeared  decided  not  to  depart  from  its  neutrality  in  the  event 
of  war,  but  it  manifested  no  sympathy  with  the  new  order  of  things. 
Talleyrand,  according  to  Dumont,  who  was  in  his  confidence  during 
this  visit  to  England,  had  a  long  conference  with  Lord  Grenville : 
but  the  Secretary  of  State  was  dry  and  laconic.  Talleyrand  had 
known  Mr.  Pitt,  who,  when  he  was  in  France  in  1783,  was  a  guest 
at  the  house  of  Talleyrand's  uncle,  the  archbishop  of  Rheums  ;  but 
t  Butler's  "  Reminiscences  "—Ccyuin  has  a  comprehensive  application  to  .-oguerf 
and  beggary. 


£22  HISTORY   OF   ENGLAND. 

Mr.  Pitt  made  no  allusion  to  his  former  acquaintance.  Talleyrand 
went  to  Court.  The  king  paid  him  little  attention,  and  the  queen 
turned  her  back  upon  him.  Talleyrand,  in  spite  of  the  charms  of 
his  conversation,  did  not  find  a  ready  admission  to  the  highest 
society  of  London ;  although  he  had  special  introductions  to  lord 
Lansdown  and  other  leading  Whigs.  Amidst  the  reserve  of  the 
ministry  and  the  neglect  of  the  court,  Talleyrand  could  expect 
little  success  from  his  irregular  mission.  He  returned  to  Paris  at 
the  beginning  of  March. 

At  this  period  of  Talleyrand's  return  from  London,  the 
Girondin  party,  as  We  shall  have  to  relate  in  the  next  chapter,  had 
acceded  to  power,  with  Dumouriez  as  minister  for  foreign  affairs. 
It  was  then  determined  to  send  an  embassy  to  London.  The 
difficulty  with  regard  to  Talleyrand  was  still  an  obstacle  to  his 
appointment  as  plenipotentiary.  The  title  was  given  to  M.  Chauve- 
lin,  a  young  negotiator ;  the  power  was  with  Talleyrand,  who  formed 
part  of  a  numerous  suite  that  accompanied  the  ambassador.  The 
party  left  Paris  in  two  carriages  in  a  fine  spring  season ;  several, 
such  as  Talleyrand  and  Dumont,  familiar  with  England ;  the 
greater  number  eager  to  gratify  their  curiosity  in  an  unknown 
country.  Garat,  a  man  of  letters,  who  afterwards  acquired  a  hate- 
ful distinction  as  minister  of  justice,  was  one  of  the  most  agreeable 
of  this  large  company.  The  impressions  of  England  made  upon 
this  man,  who  desired  the  reputation  of  a  philanthropist,  and  be- 
came the  apologist  of  massacre,  are  pleasantly  described.  When 
they  arrived  at  Dover,  Garat  mounted  the  imperial  of  the  carriage,, 
with  Dumont  at  his  side.  He  adjusted  his  eye-glass,  and  exhibited 
as  much  excited  curiosity  as  if  they  had  arrived  in  the  moon.  He 
made  the  most  amusing  exclamations,  upon  the  small  cottages,  the 
small  gardens,  the  neatness  that  reigned  throughout,  the  beauty  of 
the  children,  the  modest  air  of  the  female  peasantry,  the  decent 
dress  of  the  country  people ; — in  a  word,  this  scene  of  ease  and 
prosperity,  which  contrasted  so  strongly  with  the  misery  and  the 
rags  which  they  had  just  seen  in  the  people  of  Picardy,  struck 
Garat  in  a  singular  manner :  "  Ah,  what  a  pity,  what  a  pity,"  he 
exclaimed,  "  if  they  set  about  to  revolutionize  this  fine  country ! 
When  will  France  be  as  happy  as  England?"*  The  man  of 
letters,  who  was  preparing  to  write  the  history  of  the  French 
Revolution,  might  have  considered  that  the  comparative  happiness 
of  the  English  peasantry  would  render  such  attempt  at  revolution- 
izing altogether  vain.  One  of  the  great  causes  of  the  Revolution 
did  not  here  exist — the  feudal  privileges  which  had  long  made  the 

*  "  Souvenirs,"  p.  298. 


OPENING   OF   PARLIAMENT.  533 

people  slaves,  and  in  revenge  of  which  they  became  savages — the 
crushing  despotism  of  a  government  of  centralization,  which  stood 
in  the  way  of  all  social  improvement.  The  embassy  of  Chauvelin 
and  Talleyrand  was  established  in  London ;  but  it  was  coldly 
received  by  the  court,  and  almost  injuriously  by  the  public.  Its 
members  were  attacked  by  the  ministerial  newspapers,  and  they  com- 
mitted the  imprudence  of  assiduously  cultivating  the  society  of  the 
Opposition.  The  official  communications  of  the  embassy  and  the 
Secretary  of  State  were  not  of  a  very  agreeable  character.  Their  pub- 
lic reception  was  anything  but  flattering.  Talleyrand  and  Chauvelin 
went  to  Ranelagh,  Dumont  being  of  the  party,  with  five  or  six 
others  of  the  ambassador's  suite.  They  saw  that  they  attracted 
the  attention  of  the  gay  crowd ;  but  that  regard  was  not  compli- 
mentary ;  for  as  they  moved  round  the  ring  a  free  passage  was 
made  for  them,  right  and  left,  as  if  the  people  feared  to  breathe  an 
atmosphere  of  contagion.  They  also  saw  the  duke  of  Orleans 
walking  alone,  shunned  even  in  a  more  especial  manner.  Nev- 
ertheless, at  this  period  the  British  government  was  anxious  to 
preserve  its  neutrality  in  the  affairs  of  France :  it  was  cold,  but  it 
was  not  hostile. 

The  Parliament  of  Great  Britain  was  opened  on  the  3ist  of 
January,  1792.  The  king's  speech  was  not  a  speech  of  alarm,  but 
of  unbounded  confidence.  It  declared  that  the  general  state  of 
affairs  in  Europe  appeared  to  promise  to  his  majesty's  subjects 
a  continuance  of  their  present  tranquillity.  "  Under  these  circum- 
stances," said  the  king,  "  I  am  induced  to  think  that  some  immedi- 
ate reduction  may  safely  be  made  in  our  naval  and  military  establish- 
ments." The  speech  also  announced  "  a  continual  and  progressive 
improvement  in  the  internal  situation  of  the  country."  The 
private  correspondence  of  members  of  the  government  clearly 
shows  that  the  expectation  of  continued  peace,  and  the  boast  of 
internal  prosperity,  were  not  used  as  devices  to  keep  up  the 
spirits  of  the  nation.  "  Everything  looks  like  peace,  on  the  side 
of  France,"  writes  Lord  Grenville  in  January.  "  There  certainly 
are  some  in  France  who  wish  the  war,  but  very  many  more  who 
fear  it ;  and  the  ruin  of  the  finances  is  approaching  with  very  rapid 
strides  indeed.  What  a  contrast  we  shall  make  with  them,  when 
I  come  to  state  to  you  the  particulars."*  The  finances  of  England 
and  France  were  scarcely  capable  of  being  compared.  The  dis- 
turbance of  the  ordinary  laws  of  exchange  produced  by  the  issue  of 
Assignats  in  1790 — which  paper-money  was  based  on  the  security 
of  the  Church  Lands  remaining  unsold — had  rendered  the  financial 
*  "  Court  and  Cabinets  of  George  III.,"  vol.  ii.  p.  201. 


524 


HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 


condition  of  France  very  difficult  of  contrast  with  a  country  whose 
paper-money  was  convertible  into  specie.  The  financial  ruin  of 
France,  in  the  ordinary  sense  of  ruin,  was  approaching  very  surely 
though  gradually  at  the  beginning  of  1792;  but  towards  the  end 
of  the  year  the  excessive  issue  of  Assignats,  based  upon  the  for- 
feited property  of  emigrants,  produced  a  terrible  amount  of  private 
ruin  and  misery.  Yet  the  amount  of  private  calamity  did  not  in 
the  least  prevent  the  French  revolutionary  government  from  carry- 
ing on  hostilities  with  an  energy  that  astonished  the  statesmen  of 
other  countries,  who  provided  the  means  of  war  by  the  ordinary 
routine  of  loans  and  taxes.  The  mistake  which  the  British  gov- 
ernment constantly  made  with  regard  to  France,  long  after  1792, 
was  to  believe  that  the  ruin  of  her  finances  necessarily  involved 
the  submission  of  her  rulers — "  as  if  credit  was  necessary  to  a 
government  of  which  the  principle  was  rapine  ;  as  if  Alboin  could 
not  turn  Italy  into  a  desert  till  he  had  negotiated  a  loan  at  five  per 
cent. ;  as  if  the  exchequer  bills  of  Attila  had  been  at  par. "  * 

On  the  1 7th  of  February,  in  a  Committee  of  the  whole  House, 
Mr.  Pitt  brought  under  consideration  a  general  view  of  the  Public 
Income  and  Expenditure.  No  prospect  could  be  more  gratifying 
than  the  eloquent  minister's  survey  of  the  resources  of  the  country ; 
no  declaration  of  policy  more  statesmanlike.  He  looked  forward  to 
the  operation  of  the  Sinking  Fund  during  a  period  of  tranquillity  that 
was  likely  to  endure  for  some  years  ;  he  calculated  what  that  fund 
would  amount  to  in  1808.  "  There  never  was  a  time  in  the  history 
of  the  country,"  he  said,  "  when,  from  the  situation  of  Europe,  we 
might  more  reasonably  expect  fifteen  years  of  peace  than  we  may  at 
the  present  moment.''!  He  displayed  the  great  increase  of  revenue. 
He  enlarged  upon  the  causes  of  that  increase,  derived  from  the 
natural  industry  and  energy  of  the  country ;  the  improvement  of 
every  branch  of  manufacture  ;  the  invention  of  machinery  for  the 
abridgment  of  labour ;  that  continual  tendency  of  capital  to  in- 
crease, whenever  it  is  not  obstructed  by  some  public  calamity,  or 
by  some  mistaken  and  mischievous  policy.  Such  circumstances 
were  naturally  connected  with  the  duration  of  peace  ;  they  were 
connected  still  more  with  our  internal  tranquillity,  and  with  the 
natural  effects  of  a  free  but  well-regulated  government.  "  It  is 
this  union  of  liberty  with  law,  which,  by  raising  a  barrier  equally 
firm  against  the  encroachments  of  power,  and  the  violence  of  pop- 
ular commotion,  affords  to  property  its  just  security,  produces  the 
exertion  of  genius  and  labour,  the  extent  and  solidity  of  credit,  the 


*  Macaulay — "  Biography  of  Pitt." 

t  "Parliamentary  History,"  vol.  xxix.  col. 


826. 


THE   SLAVE   TRADE. 


525 


circulation  and  increase  of  capital ;  which  forms  and  upholds  the 
national  character,  and  sets  in  motion  all  the  springs  which  actuate 
the  great  mass  of  the  community  through  all  its  various  descrip- 
tions." Fox  complimented  his  rival  upon  his  eloquence ;  upon  his 
philosophical  view  of  the  principles  of  government ;  upon  his  true 
and  splendid  enumeration  of  the  causes  of  national  prosperity. 
What,  indeed,  we  may  now  say,  could  a  free  nation  desire  more 
than  such  an  expositor  of  its  principles,  and  such  a  leader  in  a 
continued  course  of  greatness  and  honour?  Throughout  that 
Session  we  see  William  Pitt  truly  the  foremost  man  of  all  the 
world — calm,  amidst  the  storms  which  were  raging  around  ;  in  his 
majestic  oratory  asserting  the  grandeur  of  his  country,  and  vindi- 
cating the  soundest  doctrines  of  public  economy,  and  the  most 
noble  principles  of  justice  for  the  oppressed.  On  the  2nd  of  April, 
Wilberforce  moved  for  a  Committee  of  the  whole  House  to  con- 
sider the  African  Slave  Trade,  with  a  view  to  a  resolution  for  its 
immediate  abolition.  Pitt  on  this  occasion  supported  his  friend 
in  one  of  the  most  eloquent  speeches  on  record.  "  Windham,  who 
has  no  love  for  Pitt,"  writes  Wilberforce,  "  tells  me  that  Fox  and 
Grey,  with  whom  he  walked  home  after  the  debate,  agreed  with 
him  in  thinking  Pitt's  speech  one  of  the  most  extraordinary  dis- 
plays of  eloquence  they  had  ever  heard.  For  the  last  twenty 
minutes  he  really  seemed  to  be  inspired.  He  was  dilating  upon 
the  future  prospects  of  civilizing  Africa,  a  topic  which  I  had  sug- 
gested to  him  in  the  morning."  This  almost  inspired  passage  of 
Pitt's  oration  may  scarcely  bear  the  sober  examination  of  those 
who  contend  for  the  difference  of  races ;  but  there  are  certainly 
few  things  in  the  whole  compass  of  oratory  more  magnificent  than 
his  retrospect  of  the  early  condition  of  the  Britons,  as  slaves  ex- 
ported to  the  Roman  market,  and  his  reproof  of  those  who  con- 
tended that  Africa  was  incapable  of  civilization  :  "  Why  might 
not  some  Roman  senator,  reasoning  on  the  principles  of  some 
honourable  gentlemen,  and  pointing  to  British  barbarians,  have 
predicted  with  equal  boldness,  '  There  is  a  people  that  will  never 
rise  to  civilization  ;  there  is  a  people  destined  never  to  be  free  ;  a 
people  without  the  understanding  necessary  for  the  attainment  of 
useful  arts ;  depressed  by  the  hand  of  nature  below  the  level  of  the 
human  species  ;  and  created  to  form  a  supply  of  slaves  for  the  rest 
of  the  world.'  Might  not  this  have  been  said,  in  all  respects  as 
fairly  and  as  truly  of  Britain  herself,  at  that  period  of  her  history, 
as  it  can  now  be  said  by  us  of  the  inhabitants  of  Africa  ?  "  It 
was  decided  that  night,  by  a  large  majority,  that  the  Slavs  Trade 

*  "Parliamentary  History,"  vol.  xxix.  col.  1155. 


520  HISTORY   OF    ENGLAND. 

should  be  gradually  abolished.     Pitt  and  Fox  contended  for  the 
immediate  abolition. 

In  this  session  was  carried  that  great  improvement  of  the  law 
known  as  Mr.  Fox's  Libel  Bill,  by  which  was  established  the  right 
of  juries  to  give  a  general  verdict  of  guilty  or  not  guilty  upon  the 
whole  matter  put  in  issue  upon  the  indictment.  This  Bill  was 
carried  in  the  House  of  Commons  in  the  Session  of  1791,  Pitt  sup- 
porting Fox  and  Erskine  in  the  necessity  of  taking  some  step,  at 
least  to  regulate  the  practice  of  the  Courts  on  the  trial  of  libels,  and 
render  it  conformable  to  the  free  spirit  of  the  constitution.  In  the' 
House  of  Lords,  the  Chancellor,  lord  Thurlow,  moved  the  post- 
ponement of  the  Bill ;  and  it  was  lost  for  that  Session.  In  the 
Commons,  in  1 792,  it  was  again  passed ;  and  sent  to  the  Lords. 
It  was  again  opposed  by  the  Chancellor,  who  was  supported  by 
the  whole  body  of  the  Judges — "  sad  to  relate,"  says  lord  Camp- 
bell. But  the  principle  was  advocated  in  every  stage  by  lord  Cam- 
den,  and  by  lord  Loughborough,  and  the  measure  was  finally  car- 
ried on  the  nth  of  June.  Lord  Thurlow  had  become  troublesome 
in  the  ministry  of  Mr.  Pitt,  occasionally  setting  up  an  independent 
authority,  in  which  pretension  he  appears  to  have  reckoned  upon 
the  support  of  the  king.  On  the  14th  of  May  he  made  an  unex- 
pected opposition  to  a  ministerial  measure  in  parliament,  and  had 
nearly  obtained  a  majority.  Grenville  wrote  to  his  brother,  •'  I 
think  the  consequences  must  be  decisive  in  his  situation  or  ours. 
But  it  requires  some  reflection,  and  some  management  in  the  quar- 
ter you  know."  *  In  that  "  quarter,"  there  was  no  hesitation.  The 
king  sent  a  message  to  the  chancellor  requiring  him  to  give  up 
the  office  ;  but  leaving  the  time  to  his  choice.  The  great  seal  was 
then  put  in  commission.  Lord  Loughborough,  who  belonged  to 
the  Whig  party,  was  ardently  desirous  for  the  seat  on  the  wool- 
sack. He  attempted  for  some  time  to  bring  about  a  Coalition  be- 
tween Pitt  and  Fox,  to  which  Pitt  appears  to  have  opposed  no  in- 
superable obstacle,  though  Fox  declared  that  the  minister  was  not 
sincere.  The  Whigs  were  divided  between  the  opinions  of  Burke 
and  those  of  Fox  on  the  question  of  the  French  Revolution ; 
though  many  were  not  indisposed  to  join  Pitt  to  form  "  a  strong 
government."  Burke  thought  that  "  Mr.  Fox's  coach  stops  the 
way,"  but  that  there  was  no  doing  without  him  or  with  him.f  The 
attempts  to  bring  about  a  Coalition  failed,  as  might  naturally  have 
been  expected — not  so  much  from  any  insuperable  difference  of 
principles  between  the  two  great  parliamentary  leaders  at  that  time, 

*  "  Court  of  George  III.,"  vol.  ii.  p.  207. 
T  See  "  Malmesbury's  Diary,"  pp.  418  to  443. 


ATTEMPTS   TO    FORM   A   COALITION.  527 

as  from  the  difficulties  that  were  sure  to  arise  out  of  the  conduct 
and  opinions  of  the  extreme  men  of  either  party.  If  Pitt,  united 
with  Fox,  had  adhered  to  his  principle  of  neutrality  in  the  impend- 
ing struggle  between  France  and  the  German  powers,  Fox  might 
have  moderated  many  of  those  opinions  which  appeared  to  make 
him  the  advocate  of  the  excesses  of  the  French  Revolution.  But 
the  great  question  of  peace  or  war  with  the  French  republic  really 
depended  upon  the  feelings  of  the  majority  in  parliament ;  and  be- 
fore the  close  of  the  Session  of  1 792,  it  became  pretty  evident  that 
the  strongest  ministry  would  have  real  difficulty  in  preserving  Eng- 
land from  an  interference  in  this  question,  which  so  stirred  the 
passions  of  the  community. 

On  the  3oth  of  April,  Mr.  Charles  Grey  gave  notice  of  a  motion 
for  Reform  in  the  representation  of  the  people — he  who,  as  earl 
Grey  and  Prime  Minister  forty  years  afterwards,  carried  the  Re- 
form Bill.  On  the  26th  of  April,  1792,  at  a  general  meeting  of  the 
Society  of  "  The  Friends  of  the  People,  associated  for  the  purpose 
»f  obtaining  a  Parliamentary  Reform,"  a  Declaration  was  agreed 
to  be  signed  by  many  members  of  parliament  and  other  gentlemen  ; 
and  it  was  resolved  that  Mr.  Grey  and  Mr.  Erskine  be  requested 
to  make  a  motion  on  the  subject  in  the  next  Session.  Mr.  Grey 
accordingly  gave  notice  of  his  intention  in  a  brief  speech.  Mr. 
Pitt  at  once  came  forward  to  declare  his  opinions  on  the  subject.  He 
had  supported  reform  in  former  times,  when  he  thought  that  "  if 
some  mode  could  be  adopted,  by  which  the  people  could  have  any 
additional  security  for  a  continuance  of  the  blessings  which  they 
now  enjoy,  it  would  be  an  improvement  in  the  constitution  of  the 

country He  would  ask  all  moderate  men  what  were  their 

feelings  on  this  subject  at  this  moment  ?  He  believed  he  could 
anticipate  the  answer — '  This  is  not  a  time  to  make  hazardous  exr 
periments.'  Could  we  forget  what  lessons  had  been  given  to  the 
world  within  a  few  years  ?  "  Mr.  Pitt  made  some  pointed  allusions 
to  the  Declaration  of  "  The  Friends  of  the  People,"  and  a  heated 
debate  followed,  in  which  Mr.  Fox  supported  Mr.  Grey,  but  intima- 
ted his  opinion  of  the  impolicy  of  joining  an  Association  for  Reform. 
On  the  2ist  of  May,  a  Royal  Proclamation  was  issued,  against  the 
publication  and  dispersion  of  seditious  writings.  On  the  25th,  an  Ad- 
dress to  the  king  was  proposed,  expressing  the  determination  of  the 
Commons  to  support  his  majesty  in  the  resolution  which  he  had  adopt- 
ed. Mr.  Grey  moved  an  amendment,  in  which  he  brought  forward 
Mr.  Pitt's  former  opinions  on  the  subject  of  Reform ;  described 
his  conduct  as  that  of  an  apostate ;  and  treated  the  Proclamation 
and  the  proposed  Address  as  calculated  to  throw  odium  upon  a 


528  HISTORY   OF    ENGLAND. 

Society  that  had  been  formed  with  the  purest  intentions.  The 
Proclamation,  he  said,  was  intended  to  separate  the  Whig  party. 
1  here  were,  indeed,  many  signs  that  a  separation  of  old  political 
friends  was  inevitable.  In  the  House  of  Lords,  the  prince  of 
Wa*es,  always  hitherto  associated  in  politics  with  Mr.  Fox,  Mr. 
Sheridan,  and  the  Opposition,  spoke,  for  the  first  time,  on  this  sub- 
ject of  the  king's  Proclamation.  The  matter  in  question  was,  he 
said,  whether  the  constitution  was  or  was  not  to  be  maintained ; 
whether  the  wild  ideas  of  theory  were  to  conquer  the  wholesome 
maxims  of  established  practice  ;  and  whether  those  laws  under 
which  we  had  flourished  for  such  a  series  of  years  were  to  be  sub- 
verted by  a  reform  unsanctioned  by  the  people.  "  I  exist,"  ex- 
claimed his  royal  highness,  "  by  the  love,  the  friendship,  and  the 
benevolence  of  the  people,  and  their  cause  I  will  never  forsake  as 
long  as  I  live."  * 

The  Proclamation  against  Seditious  Writings  stated  that  "we 
have  reason  to  believe  that  correspondences  have  been  entered  into 
with  sundry  persons  in  foreign  parts,  with  a  view  to  forward  the 
criminal  and  wicked  purposes "  alluded  to.  M.  Chauvelin,  the 
French  minister  plenipotentiary,  upon  the  appearance  of  this  Proc- 
lamation, addressed  a  note  to  lord  Grenville,  in  which  he  says,  "If 
certain  individuals  of  this  country  have  established  a  correspondence 
abroad,  tending  to  excite  troubles  therein,  and  if,  as  the  proclama- 
tion seems  to  insinuate,  certain  Frenchmen  have  come  into  their 
views,  that  is  a  proceeding  wholly  foreign  to  the  French  nation,  to 
the  legislative  body,  to  the  king,  and  to  his  ministers  ;  it  is  a  pro- 
ceeding of  which  they  are  entirely  ignorant,  which  militates  against 
every  principle  of  justice,  and  which,  whenever  it  became  known, 
would  be  universally  condemned  in  France.  Independently  of 
these  principles  of  justice,  from  which  a  free  people  ought  never  to 
deviate,  is  it  not  evident,  from  a  due  consideration  of  the  true  in- 
terests of  the  French  nation,  that  she  ought  to  desire  the  interior 
tranquillity,  the  continuance  and  the  force  of  the  constitution,  of  a 
country  which  she  already  looks  upon  as  her  natural  ally  ?  "  Argu- 
ing thus,  at  considerable  length,  M.  Chauvelin  requests  that  the 
Secretary  of  State  would  communicate  his  note  to  both  Houses  of 
Parliament  previous  to  their  deliberations  upon  the  proposed  Ad- 
dress. Cbrd  Grenville  administered  a  dignified  rebuke  to  the  French 
ambassador :  "  The  deliberations  of  the  two  Houses  of  Parliament, 
as  well  as  the  communications  which  his  majesty  shall  be  pleased 
to  make  to  them,  relative  to  the  affairs  of  the  kingdom,  are  objects 
absolutely  foreign  to  all  diplomatic  correspondence,  and  upon  which 

*  "  Parliamentary  History,"  vol.  xxix.  col.  1517. 


PARTITION   OF   POLAND.  529 

it  is  impossible  for  me  to  enter  into  any  discussion  whatever  with 
the  ministers  of  other  courts."  It  is  clear  that  there  could  not  be 
any  very  cordial  communication  between  the  French  envoy  and  the 
English  ministers  although  the  forms  of  diplomatic  courtesy  were 
sedulously  preserved.  On  the  1 8th  of  June,  M.  Chauvelin,  having 
previously  announced  the  commencement  of  hostilities,  invites  his 
Britannic  majesty,  in  the  name  of  the  king  of  the  French,  to  use 
his  influence,  "  to  stop,  whilst  it  is  still  time,  the  progress  of  a 
confederacy,  which  equally  affects  the  peace,  the  liberty,  and  the 
happiness  of  Europe."  Lord  Grenville,  coldly  answering  this  im- 
passioned exhortation,  says,  "the  same  sentiments  which  have 
determined  the  king  not  to  take  part  in  the  internal  affairs  of  France 
ought  equally  to  induce  him  to  respect  the  rights  and  the  indepen- 
dence of  other  sovereigns,  and  especially  those  of  the  allies  ;  and 
his  majesty  has  thought  that,  in  the  existing  circumstances  of  the 
war  now  begun,  the  intervention  of  his  counsels,  or  of  his  good 
offices,  cannot  be  of  use,  unless  they  should  be  desired  by  all  the 
parties  interested." 

The  Parliament  was  prorogued  on  the  :6th  of  June.  In  his 
speech  on  closing  the  Session  the  king  said,  "  I  have  seen  with 
great  concern  the  commencement  of  hostilities  in  several  parts  of 
Europe."  The  war  between  Turkey  and  Russia  was  at  an  end. 
The  disciplined  armies  of  Austria  has  scarcely  yet  come  into  conflict 
with  the  raw  levies  of  France.  But  if  there  were  evils  to  be  dreaded 
from  the  progress,  of  democratic  opinions,  there  was  no  less  a 
danger  to  be  apprehended  from  the  daring  ambition  of  absolute 
monarchs.  There  was  another  Revolution  upon  which  those  who 
feared  anarchy  but  loved  liberty  looked  without  apprehension.  In 
1791  a  great  change  had  been  effected  in  the  government  of  Poland. 
The  tryanny  of  the  nobles  had  been  abolished  with  the  entire 
concurrence  of  the  king  and  the  people.  A  new  Constitution  was 
established,  which  provided  for  an  hereditary  Crown  ;  a  Legislature 
consisting  of  two  Houses  ;  equality  of  civil  rights  ;  a  complete 
toleration  of  all  religions.  This  rational  system  was  offensive  to 
the  despotic  empress  of  Russia  ;  and  she  sent  an  army  into  Po- 
land to  destroy  the  new  liberties  of  the .  countay.  The  king  of 
Poland  appealed  to  his  ally  the  king  of  Prussia,  to  send  him  that 
aid  which  Prussia  was  bound  by  treaty  to  render.  The  tricky 
court  of  Berlin  replied  that  the  change  in  the  government  of  Po- 
land had  cancelled  the  obligation.  Such  were  the  Allies  to  whom 
Great  Britain  had  to  look,  if  she  was  to  take  any  hostile  pro- 
ceedings against  the  revolutionary  government  of  France.  Some 
enthusiasts  in  England  thought,  in  the  summer  of  1792,  that  it 
VOL.  VI.— 34 


530  HISTORY   OF   ENGLAND. 

would  be  a  wise  policy  for  our  country  to  make  common  cause 
with  France  in  resisting  the  despots  who  were  crushing  the  inde- 
pendence of  Poland.  Against  this  scheme,  Burke  was  indignant. 
He  applauded  the  Revolution  of  Poland ;  he  hated  that  of  France. 
He  lamented  the  fate  of  Poland  ;  but  he  would  sooner  let  affairs 
there  take  their  course  than  enter  "  into  a  confederacy  with  the 
horror,  turpitude,  baseness,  and  wickedness  of  the  French  Revolu- 
tion." *  Things  in  Poland  did  take  their  course.  The  crimes  of 
monarchy  were  at  hand  to  make  men  careful  not  to  exhaust  all 
their  indignation  against  the  crimes  of  democracy. 

*  "  Correspondence  of  Burke,"  vol.  iii.  p.  472. 


DEATH  OF  THE   EMPEROR  AND  THE   KING  OF   SWEDEN        1531 


CHAPTER  XXVIII. 

Deaths  of  the  emperor  and  the  king  of  Sweden.— The  Girondin  Ministry.— French  deo 
laration  of  war  against  the  king  of  Hungary  and  Bohemia. — The  Veto. — Roland,  and 
two  other  ministers,  dismissed. — Insurrection  of  the2othof  June. — The  Country  in 
Danger  proclaimed. — Arrival  of  the  Marsellais.— Proclamation  of  the  Duke  of  Bruns- 
wick.— Insurrection  of  the  icth  of  August.— Attack  on  the  Tuileries. — Royal  family 
removed  to  the  Temple. — Longwy  taken  by  the  Prussians. — The  Massacres  of  Sep- 
tember. 

IN  March,  1792,  two  of  the  crowned  heads  of  Europe  who  were 
meditating  upon  the  great  question  of  a  war  with  France  were  re- 
moved by  death.  Leopold,  the  emperor,  died  on  the  ist  of  March. 
He  was  succeeded  as  king  of  Hungary  and  Bohemia  by  his  eldest 
son,  Frances  II.  Gustavus  III.,  king  of  Sweden,  was  shot  on  the 
6th  of  March,  at  a  masked  ball,  by  Ankerstroem,  one  of  the  nobles 
whose  privileges  he  had  abrogated  in  1789  to  establish  his  own 
absolute  power.  He  was  succeeded  by  his  son,  a  boy  of  thirteen 
years  of  age.  The  successor  of  Leopold  was  not  yet  elected  em- 
peror when  France  declared  war  against  him  on  the  2Oth  of  April. 
This  declaration  was  the  act  of  the  Girondin  ministry.  The 
administration  which  represented  the  Feuillans,  or  party  of  the 
Constitution,  of  whom  Bertrand  de  Moleville  and  Narbonne  were 
leading  members  and  political  rivals,  was  broken  up  by  its  own 
differences.  The  king  had  now  to  look  to  a  party  of  greater  power 
in  the  Assembly,  but  more  likely  to  precipitate  the  Court  into  dan- 
gerous measures.  On  the  ijth  of  March,  general  Dumouriez  was 
offered  the  ministry  of  Foreign  Affairs.  By  the  23d  a  new  admin- 
istration was  formed.  Claviere  was  appointed  minister  of  finance  ; 
and  Roland  de  Platiere  was  appointed  minister  of  the  interior ;  he, 
of  whom  Authur  Young  writes,  in  1 789,  as  "  a  gentleman  somewhat 
advanced  in  life, who  has  a  young  and  beautiful  wife,"  and  who  then 
filled  the  humble  office  of  inspector  of  fabrics  at  Lyons.*  Roland  has 
now  brought  to  Paris  his  beautiful  wife,  the  daughter  of  an  engraver, 
to  aid  him  in  weightier  matters  than  such  as  he  discussed  with  the 
English  agriculturist.  The  grave  man  goes  to  Court  in  plain  black, 
with  strings  in  his  shoes ;  and  the  horrified  master  of  the  cere- 
monies points  to  him ;  and  ejaculates  to  Dumouriez — "  Quoi  J— no 
*  "  TraTels  in  France,"  4to.,  p.  262. 


532  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

buckles  !  "  "  All  is  lost,"  said  the  sarcastic  general.  Madame 
Roland,  an  enthusiastic  republican,  was  admitted  to  the  political 
meetings  of  her  husband  and  the  men  of  his  party.  Dttmont  says 
of  these  committees  of  ministers  and  the  principal  Girondins,  at 
which  he  was  sometimes  present  and  saw  Madame  Roland,  "a 
woman  might  appear  there  somewhat  out  of  place,  but  she  took  no 
part  in  the  discussions.  She  sat  at  her  own  writing-table,  busy 
over  letters,  but  she  lost  not  a  word  of  what  was  going  forward." 
Madame  Roland, he  says,  "who  had  an  easy  and  energetic  style,  was 
too  fond  of  writing,  and  engaged  her  husband  in  writing  unceasingly. 
It  was  the  ministry  of  writers."  f  He  conceived  that  they  were 
too  much  occupied  in  labouring  to  influence  the  opinions  of  the 
moment,  not  to  sacrifice  too  much  to  a  vulgar  policy,  instead  of 
rising  above  the  dominion  of  prejudices.  Brissot,  equally  active  in 
the  Assembly,  and  in  the  Jacobins'  Club,  was  the  head  of  a 
faction  sufficiently  powerful  to  make  himself  feared  by  the  ministry. 
Brissot  had  strong  prejudices  against  the  king.  Claviere  had 
become  convinced  that  the  king  had  pure  intentions  ;  and  he  was 
detailing,  at  a  meeting  at  Roland's  house,  an  instance  of  the  knowl- 
edge of  the  Constitution  which  Louis  possessed.  Brissot  and 
Clavere  had  angry  words  ;  Roland  was  afraid  to  be  just  towards 
a  king,  whose  minister  he  was.  The  dispute  was  made  up  by  the 
address  of  Roland's  wife.*  Such  small  circumstances  indicate  the 
internal  influences  that  bore  upon  the  actions  of  the  ministry.  The 
war  with  Austria  was  forced  on  by  Brissot.  It  was  opposed  by  all 
except  Dumouriez.  "  Brissot,"  says  Dumont,  "was  so  violent,  that 
I  have  heard  him  propose  to  disguise  some  soldiers  as  Austrian 
hussars,  who  should  make  a  night  attack  upon  some  French 
villages ;  and,  upon  receiving  this  news,  he  would  have  made  a 
motion  for  war,  and  would  have  carried  an  enthusiastic  decree."  f 
Dumouriez  says  in  his  Memoirs,  that,  as  minister,  he  endeavoured 
to  prevent  the  war ;  but  that  he  would  have  considered  the  nation 
cowardly,  and  unworthy  of  liberty,  if  it  had  longer  submitted  to  the 
hostile  insolence  of  the  Court  of  Vienna.  The  king  was  against 
the  war ;  although  he  formally  proposed  to  the  Legislative  Assem- 
bly a  declaration  of  hostilities.  The  Assembly  resolved  on  war  the 
same  night.  The  plan  of  the  campaign  was  formed  by  Dumouriez. 
Its  chief  object  was  to  advance  into  the  Low  Countries,  where  it 
was  expected  that  the  French  armies  would  be  welcomed  by  a 
population  which  disliked  the  rule  of  Austria.  The  first  movements 
were  not  successful.  La  Fayette  commanded  the  army  of  the  cen- 

*  "  Souvenirs  sur  Mirabeau,"  p.  276 — p.  278. 

*  Hid,,  p,  484.  %  Ibid.,  p.  288. 


THE   VETO.  533 

tre;  Rochambeau,  the  army  of  the  north;  two  of  his  officers,  Dillon 
and  Biron,  were  to  move  forward  with  divisions,  as  a  feint,  wh.lst 
La  Fayette  made  the  real  advance.  The  troops  under  Dillon  and 
Biron  were  each  seized  with  a  panic,  at  the  sight  of  the  Austrian 
troops.  La  Fayette,  hearing  of  these  misfortunes  suspended  his 
own  march. 

There  was  a  crsis  at  hand  of  more  importance  in  the  future  des- 
tinies of  France  and  of  Europe,  than  the  first  failure  of  the  French 
arms  in  the  advance  from  the  frontier.  The  possibility  of  the 
Constitution  of  1 791  working  in  times  of  trial  was  to  be  demonstra- 
ted. That  Constitution  gave  the  king  an  absolute  veto  upon  the 
acts  of  the  Legislature.  He  had  the  sole  power  of  nominating  his 
ministers  ;  and  of  appointing  to  every  civil  and  military  office.  He 
had  a  large  and  uncontrolled  revenue.  That  he  was  subject  to 
popular  insult  was  perhaps  in  some  degree  an  unavoidable  con- 
sequence of  the  anomaly  that  had  been  established  between  the 
power  of  the  crown  and  the  spirit  of  the  people.  A  democratic 
legislature  ;  a  monarch,  with  the  power  in  his  own  person  of  over- 
turning their  decrees,  without  any  reference  to  ministerial  respon- 
sibilty.  A  ministry  forced  upon  him  by  a  party  in  the  Assembly 
inclined  towards  a  republic  ;  an  army  upon  the  frontier,  stimulated 
by  the  princes  of  the  blood  and  a  body  of  noble  emigrants,  in  secret 
communication  with  him,  and  resolved  to  undo  the  work  of  the 
Revolution.  The  king  had  too  much  power  of  a  dangerous  nature ; 
and  too  little  power  for  the  preservation  of  his  own  authority,  in 
connection  with  the  vast  changes  which  had  cutaway  all  the  natural 
props  of  the  monarchy.  The  Girondin  ministry,  represented  by 
Roland,  were  disposed  to  coerce  the  king  but  not  to  adopt  the 
extreme  opinions  of  the  Jacobins.  Dumouriez,  a  man  of  vivacity 
and  pleasure,  was  not  at  ease  with  his  formal  associate  of  the  shoe- 
strings; who  went  straight  forward  to  the  assertion  of  his  own  opin- 
ions without  intrigue  or  compromise.  The  king  hesitated  about  his 
sanction  of  a  decree  of  the  Assembly  for  the  deportation  of  the 
priests  who  had  not  taken  the  oath  ;  and  of  another  decree  for  the 
formation  of  a  large  camp  of  federates  near  Paris.  Roland,  or 
rather  his  wife,  had  drawn  up  a  letter  of  advice  to  the  king,  which 
he  proposed  that  all  the  ministers  should  sign.  They  declined  to 
do  so.  Another  letter  was  then  drawn  up  by  the  enthusiastic  lady, 
which  was  addressed  by  Roland  to  the  king  in  his  own  name.  It 
demanded,  almost  in  a  tone  of  menace,  that  the  king  should  give 
his  sanction  to  the  two  decrees  about  which  he  was  deliberating. 
Dumouriez  was  asked  by  the  king  if  he  ought  to  endure  this  insult ; 
and  Dumouriez  advised  him  to  dismiss  Roland  and  two  other  of 


534  HISTORY   OF   ENGLAND. 

the  ministry.  This  was  on  the  I3th  of  June.  Roland  went  to  the 
Assembly,  and  read  his  letter ;  and  it  was  declared  that  the  three 
dismissed  ministers  had  the  confidence  of  the  country.  The  king 
resolved  to  sanction  the  decree  fora  camp  near  Paris,  but  not  that 
for  the  deportation  of  the  priests  ;  and  he  prepared  a  letter  to  that 
effect  to  the  Assembly,  which  he  asked  the  remaining  ministers  to 
countersign.  They  refused,  and  were  dismissed.  Other  ministers 
were  appointed  from  the  party  of  the  Feuillans.  They  entered 
upon  office  on  the  I7th  of  June.  On  the  2oth  a  popular  demonstra- 
tion of  the  most  formidable  nature  showed  where  the  power  resided 
that  would  command  an  interpretation  of  the  constitution  according 
to  its  own  will.  Lamartine  has  truly  said,  "  the  first  insurrections 
of  the  Revolution  were  the  spontaneous  impulses  of  the  people. 
.  .  .  .  Public  passion  gave  the  signal,  and  chance  commanded. 
When  the  Revolution  was  accomplished,  and  the  Constitution  had 
imposed  legal  order  on  each  party,  the  insurrections  of  the  people 

were   no   longer  agitations,  but   plans Amongst  the 

citizens  anarchy  had  disciplined  itself,  and  its  disorder  was  only 
external,  for  a  secret  influence  animated  and  directed  it  unknown 
to  itself."*  In  every  quarter  and  section  of  Paris  there  were  local 
leaders,  who  took  their  direction  from  the  great  agitators  of  the 
Clubs  and  of  the  Journals. 

The  2Oth  of  June  is  the  anniversary  of  the  famous  day  of  1 789, 
when  the  States-General  in  the  Tennis  Court  swore  never  to  sepa- 
rate. In  the  faubourg  Saint  Antoine,  and  in  the  faubourg  Saint 
Marceau,  there  are  great  crowds  assembled  betimes  in  the  morn- 
ing. Their  purpose  ostensibly  is  to  plant  a  tree  of  liberty,  and  to 
petition  the  Assembly  about  certain  constitutional  grievances. 
They  have  music ;  and  tricolor  streamers  on  pikes  ;  and  dainty 
emblems  with  inscriptions,  such  as  a  bull's  heart  pierced  through, 
inscribed  "  Aristocrat's  heart,"  and  a  pair  of  black  breeches,  with  a 
label  intimating  that  tyrants  must  tremble  at  the  sans-culottes. 
The  mob  of  armed  men  and  armed  women,  led  by  Santerre,  the 
brewer,  have  reached  the  Salle  de  Manege,  to  the  number  of  eight 
thousand.  They  gain  admittance,  and  a  petition  is  read  to  the  As- 
sembly, the  text  of  which  is,  that  "  blood  shall  flow,  unless  the  tree 
of  liberty  which  we  are  going  to  plant,  shall  flourish."  They  defile 
through  the  Hall,  singing  "  (a  ira"  and  shouting  "  Down  with  the 
Veto."  The  crowd  had  prodigiously  increased  when  the  petition- 
ers came  out  Trr  tree  is  planted ;  and  then,  the  king  must  be 
visited  in  his  palace.  The  king  is  expected  to  come  out,  but  he 
does  not  think  proper  to  appear.  The  Place  de  Carrousel  and  the 

''  Girondins,"  book  xv» 


INSURRECTION   OF   THE  TWENTIETH   OF  JUNE.  535 

gardens  of  the  Tuileries  are  filled  with  this  wild  rabble ;  and  at 
last  they  are  battering  the  doors  of  the  palace  with  axes  and  crow- 
bars. The  king  goes  to  the  Council  Chamber,  where  some  of  the 
ministers  are  assembled,  and  three  grenadiers  are  also  there.  The 
rabble  are  in  the  adjoining  room,  when  the  king  orders  the  door  of 
the  Council  Chamber  to  be  opened.  "  Sire,  be  not  afraid,"  said  a 
grenadier  to  the  king.  "  Put  your  hand  upon  my  heart;  it  is  tranquil," 
replied  the  king.  He  asks  the  mob  what  they  want  ?  His  courage 
somewhat  awes  them.  They  then  cry  "  Remove  Veto."  "  This  is 
not  the  time  to  do  so,  nor  is  this  the  way  to  ask  it,"  says  the  brave 
Louis.  A  petition  was  then  read  to  him  by  Legendre,  a  butcher.  For 
four  hours  did  this  extraordinary  scene  continue.  The  red  cap  was 
handed  to  the  king,  and  he  put  it  on.  A  drunken  man,  with  a  bottle  in 
his  hand,  offered  the  king  to  drink,  and  he  drank  "  To  the  Nation." 
Petion,  the  mayor  of  Paris,  at  last  arrived .  He  had  been  very 
slow  in  coming,  and  was  not  very  alert  when  he  did  come.  To  his 
connivance  is  attributed  the  disgrace  of  this  outrage  ;  and  it  is  even 
alleged  that  the  agitators  hoped  that  the  king  would  fall  by  the 
hands  of  the  mob.  The  education  of  the  people  in  the  school  of 
bloodshed  was  not  yet  sufficiently  advanced  for  this  scheme  to  be 
realised.  The  king  at  last  got  out  of  the  hands  of  the  rude  crowd, 
vociferous  but  not  ferocious,  though  many  were  intoxicated.  They 
marched  through  the  apartments  of  the  palace.  They  passed  be- 
fore the  queen  and  her  son,  who  stood  behind  a  table,  protected  by 
some  grenadiers  ;  they  placed  a  red  cap  on  the  little  boy's  head. 
The  sun  has  set  before  the  palace  is  cleared  ;  but  no  lives  have 
been  sacrificed.  The  firmness  of  the  king  has  saved  him.  Mr. 
Huskisson,  in  a  letter  of  the  2pth  of  June,  pays  a  just  tribute  to 
the  deportment  of  the  king  :  "  His  admirable  presence  of  mind 
during  this  long  and  painful  scene,  have  gained  him  many  friends 
among  the  better  order  of  people,  and  seem  to  have  added  much 
to  the  affection  of  the  army.  His  friends  only  wish  that  his  cour- 
age was  of  a  more  active  nature.  In  his  conduct  he  seems  to  be 
supported  by  the  spirit  of  a  martyr,  the  tranquillity  of  a  good 
conscience,  the  resignation  of  a  Christian  ;  but  nothing  hitherto 
shows  the  enterprising  courage  and  intrepidity  of  a  hero,  capable 
of  great  and  astonishing  resolutions,  executed  with  that  energy 
which  strikes  his  enemies  with  terror,  and  ensures  success  to  his 
cause."  * 

General  La  Fayette,  on  hearing  of  the  atrocious  proceedings  of 
4.he  2oth  of  June,  arrived  in  Paris  from  his  army,  and  appeared  at 
the  bar  of  the  Legislative  Assembly,  to  urge  an  inquiry  into  the 

*  "  Speeches  of  Huskisson,"  vol.  i. — Introductory  Memoir. 


536  HISTORY  OF   ENGLAND. 

cause  of  these  excesses,  and  to  denounce  their  instigators.  La  Fay- 
ette  was  received  with  honour  at  the  Assembly.  The  Jacobins  in. 
their  club  called  for  his  impeachment.  He  left  Paris  in  time  to 
preserve  his  own  life  ;  and  the  Jacobins  had  only  the  satisfaction 
of  burning  him  in  effigy.  On  the  frontier  there  is  inaction  in  the 
German  army  and  in  the  French.  But  events  are  ripening.  On  the 
nth  of  July,  it  is  resolved  by  the  Assembly  to  proclaim  "  The 
Country  in  danger."  On  the  I4th  of  July  there  is  a  festival  in  the 
Champ  de  Mars — another  feast  of  the  Federation,  when  the  king 
again  takes  the  National  oath.  But  there  are  no  shouts  for  the 
king.  The  popular  idol  of  this  day  is  the  mayor  of  Paris,  Petion, 
who  had  been  suspended  from  his  functions  by  the  Directory  of 
the  Department,  for  his  conduct  on  the  2oth  of  June.  "  Petion, 
or  death,"  is  the  shout  at  the  Feast  of  the  Federation.  On  the 
22nd  of  July  there  is  a  civic  procession  to  proclaim  "  The  country 
in  danger."  The  ominous  words  are  inscribed  on  an  enormous 
flag  which  is  fixed  on  the  Pont-Neuf  ;  and  a  similar  flag  is  hoisted 
on  the  top  of  the  Hotel  de  Ville.  Each  section  is  headed  by  its 
municipal  officer  ;  and  he  is  ready  to  inscribe  the  names  of  those 
who  will  go  forth  to  fight  for  their  country.  Young  men  of  Paris  are 
going  out  to  do  battle  against  the  foreigner.  Other  young  men  are 
marching  into  Paris,  from  the  extreme  south  of  France — how 
called  together  no  one  knows,  with  what  object  few  can  guess. 
They  have  travelled  six  hundred  miles  from  the  city  of  Marseilles, 
singing  that  stirring  song  of  the  Marseilles,  whose  chorus  was  an 
expression  of  the  patriotism  which  exalted  and  the  ferocity  which 
disgraced  the  revolution. 

"  Aux  armes,  citoyens !  formez  vos  bataillons  ! 
Marchons  !  qu'un  sang  impur  abreuve  nos  sillons  !  " 

These  five  hundred  tired  and  travel-stained  patriots  have  entered 
Paris  on  the  3oth  of  July,  and  on  that  same  day  are  fighting  with  the 
National  Guards.  Who  has  brought  these  men  of  the  south  to 
Paris  ;  and  why  are  they  fighting  with  the  troops  who  are  there  to 
defend  the  constitution  ?  A  few  days  will  show.  They  began  their 
career  in  Paris  by  taking  part  with  a  rabble  against  the  sworn  de- 
fenders of  the  law.  Barbaroux,  a  fierce  republican,  who  came 
from  Marseilles,  had  gone  out  from  the  city  to  meet  these  adven- 
turers, and  he  was  fully  competent  to  give  them  their  instructions 
in  the  duty  of  patriots. 

The  capital  of  France  was  in  this  state  of  excitement,  when  a 
proclamation  of  the  duke  of  Brunswick,  dated  the  25th  of  July, 
from  Coblentz,  arrived  ;  and  was  immediately  printed  in  the  jour- 
nals. It  is  impossible  to  read  this  declaration  without  regarding  it 


PROCLAMATION   OF   THE   DUKE   OF    BRUNSWICK.          ^37 

either  as  an  act  of  insanity  ;  or  an  atrocious  attempt  to  render  the 
most  violent  instruments  of  the  Revolution  more  desperate,  and 
thus  to  deliver  up  France,  torn  to  pieces  by  civil  war,  an  easy  prey 
to  those  who  wouldpartition  her,  as  they  had  partitioned  Poland. 
We  must  regard  it  as  the  madness  of  the  emigrant  princes  and 
their  besotted  followers.  The  declaration  of  the  duke  of  Bruns- 
wick, in  the  name  of  the  emperor  and  the  king  of  Prussia,  disavows 
any  intention  to  make  conquests,  or  to  meddle  with  the  internal 
government  of  France  ;  but  announces  that  they  intend  to  deliver 
the  king  and  the  royal  family  from  their  captivity,  and  to  enable  him 
to  make  such  convocations  as  he  shall  judge  proper,  and  te  labour  i  n 
security  for  the  vvelfare  of  his  subjects.  The  National  Guards  are 
called  upon  to  preserve  order  till  the  arrival  of  the  troo'ps  of  the  em- 
peror and  the  king  of  Prussia;  those  who  fight  against  these  troops 
shall  be  punished  as  rebels  to  their  king  :  the  members  of  depart- 
ments, districts,  and  municipalities,  are  held  responsible,  under 
pain  of  losing  their  heads,  for  all  crimes  which  they  shall  suffer  to 
take  place  ;  if  the  inhabitants  of  the  towns  and  villages  shall  dare  to 
defend  themselves  against  the  troops  of  their  imperial  and  royal 
majesties,  they  shall  be  punished  according  to  the  most  rigorous 
rules  of  war.  The  inhabitants  of  Paris  are  called  upon  to  submit 
instantly  to  their  king  ;  "to  set  that  prince  at  full  liberty,  and  to 
ensure  to  him  and  to  all  royal  persons  that  inviolability  and  respect 
which  are  due,  by  the  laws  of  nature  and  of  nations,  to  sovereigns  ; 
their  imperial  and  royal  majesties  making  personally  responsible 
for  all  events,  on  pain  of  losing  their  heads,  pursuant  to  military 
trials,  without  hopes  of  pardon,  all  the  members  of  the  National 
Assembly,  of  the  department,  of  the  district,  of  the  municipality, 
and  of  the  National  Guards  of  Paris,  justices  of  peace,  and  others 
whom  it  may  concern ;  and  their  imperial  and  royal  majesties 
further  declare,  on  their  faith  and  word  of  emperor  and  king, 
that  if  the  palace  of  the  Tuileries  be  forced  or  insulted — if  the  least 
violence  be  offered,  the  least  outrage  done,  to  their  majesties  the 
king,  the  queen,  and  the  royal  family — if  they  be  not  immediately 
placed  in  safety,  and  set  at  liberty,  they  will  inflict  on  those  who 
shall  deserve  it  the  most  exemplary  and  ever  memorable  avenging 
punishments,  by  giving  up  the  city  of  Paris  to  military  execution, 
and  exposing  it  to  total  destruction." 

There  was  a  Scotch  physician  of  some  celebrity,  Dr.  John 
Moore,  the  author  of  a  popular  novel,  "  Zeluco,"  travelling,  in  com- 
pany with  the  earl  of  Lauderdale,  to  Paris,  at  the  beginning  of 
August,  1792.  He  saw  the  peasants  dancing  on  a  green  plain, 
without  any  fear  of  Austrians  or  Prussians.  He  met  people  in 


HISTORY   OF   ENGLAND. 

carriages  flying  from  Paris,  who  seemed  to  be  impressed  with  a 
notion  that  some  important  event  was  about  to  happen  ;  and  one 
person  said  that  a  conspiracy  would  break  out  on  the  pth  of  the 
month.  Moore  and  his  friend  laughed  at  the  notion  of  a  conspiracy 
so  well  known  beforehand.*  There  were  certainly  grounds  for  appre- 
hension ;  for  Petion  had  been,  on  the  3rd  of  August,  at  the  bar  of 
the  Assembly,  at  the  head  of  a  deputation  of  the  Commune,  who 
demanded  the  deposition  of  the  king.  Louis  had  sent  a  message 
to  the  Assembly,  disavowing  the  proclamation  of  the  duke  of 
Brunswick,  and  expressing  doubts  of  its  authenticity.  The  friends 
of  the  king  were  in  serious  alarm,  and  were  concerting  measures 
for  his  flight.  The  Court  apprehended  an  attack  upon  the  Tuile- 
ries,  and  were  bribing  Danton,  Santerre,  and  others  of  the 
Jacobin  faction,  to  avert  the  dreaded  insurrection.  The  decrees 
of  the  Assembly  were  wholly  in  the  power  of  the  Girondins,  who 
desired  a  Republic,  and  of  the  Mountain,  who  would  not  scruple 
to  destroy  the  Monarchy  whatever  amount  of  butchery  the  attempt 
might  involve.  The  real  hope  of  the  Court  was  that  the  duke  of 
Brunswick  might  be  able  to  reach  Paris  before  any  serious  out- 
break. There  were  men  there  who  had  the  absolute  command  of 
a  fierce  multitude,  who  would  do  their  bidding  with  terrible  promp- 
titude, whilst  the  allied  troops  were  slowly  advancing  towards  the 
French  frontier.  There  was  an  insurrectional  Committee  ready 
to  strike  a  blow  whenever  the  time  came.  The  faubourg  Saint 
Marceau,  and  the  faubourg  Saint  Antoine,  and  the  Club  of  the 
Cordeliers,  were  their  three  centres  of  action.  On  the  evening  of 
the  Qth  of  August,  Danton  was  crying  "to  arms."  The  Marseillais 
were  forming  their  ranks  at  the  entrance  of  that  Club  of  which 
Danton  was  the  leading  mover.  The  Sections  assembled,  and 
sent  their  Commissioners  to  assume  the  municipal  authority  at  the 
Hotel  de  Ville,  and  to  displace  the  Council.  At  midnight  the 
tocsin  was  sounded  in  every  quarter.  Drums  were  beating  to  arms. 
The  National  Guards  were  rushing  to  the  posts  of  the  several  de- 
partments. The  streets  were  illuminated  by  order  of  the  municipali- 
ty. It  was  a  night  of  terror  ;  but  it  was  more  especially  terrible  to 
the  king  and  the  royal  family,  who  had  heard  the  deadful  note  of 
the  tocsin.  They  were  surrounded  by  faithful  servants  who  were 
resolved  to  share  their  perils.  The  National  Guards,  who  were 
bound  to  defend  the  palace,  had  assembled  very  slowly  at  the  beat 
of  the  rappel.  The  protection  of  the  king  almost  wholly  fell  upon 
the  Swiss  guards.  Mandat,  a  constitutionalist,  'then  commanding 
the  National  Guard,  made  the  best  preparations  in  his  power  to 

*  "  Journal  of  1792,"  August  6. 


INSURRECTION   OF   THE  TENTH   OF   AUGUST.  539 

resist  an  attack.  He  had  given  orders  to  the  gendarmerie  about 
the  Tuileries,  and  at  the  Hotel  de  Ville ;  which  had  the  sanction  of 
the  Council  that  had  been  superseded  in  the  night  by  the  Sections. 
Mandat  was  sent  for  to  the  Hotel  de  Ville,  as  the  morning  was 
approaching.  He  went,  and  was  murdered.  There  was  now  no 
plan  of  defence  for  the  Tuileries,  which,  as  the  sun  rose,  was  sur- 
rounded by  thousands  of  insurgents.  There  were  National  Guards 
sufficient  to  have  driven  back  the  multitude,  if  the  men  had  done  the 
duty  to  which  they  had  been  sworn.  The  king  was  advised  to  go 
into  the  courts  and  the  gardens  of  the  palace  and  review  these  troops. 
He  was  received  with  cries  of  "  Down  with  the  Veto."  Battalions 
left  their  positions,  and  joined  the  assailants  in  the  Place  du  Carrou- 
sel. The  Assembly  had  hastily  met  during  the  night ;  and  continued 
their  sitting  whilst  this  hurricane  of  popular  violence  was  raging 
around  them.  They  were  debating  some  unimportant  law,  having 
no  reference  to  the  crisis  whose  development  they  were  quietly 
expecting.  The  king  and  his  family  were  strongly  urged  to  place 
themselves  under  the  protection  of  the  Assembly.  They  at  last 
consented  ;  and  when  he  entered  the  Hall,  Louis  said,  "  I  am  come 
here  to  prevent  a  great  crime.  I  believe  myself  in  safety  in  the 
midst  of  you,  gentlemen."  It  was  then  about  nine  o'clock. 

The  royal  family  were  placed  in  the  logographe,  a  small  box 
used  by  the  reporters.  Soon  the  sound  of  cannon  was  heard.  No 
orders  were  given  when  the  king  left  the  palace.  It  was  known  to 
the  leaders  of  the  insurgents  that  he  was  gone.  The  great  crime, 
the  murder  of  the  royal  family,  was  averted  by  their  leaving  the 
Tuileries  ;  but  a  wholesale  butchery  was  to  manifest  the  devotion 
to  liberty  and  patriotism  of  the  mobs  of  Paris.  All  the  troops  in  the 
courts  were  received  into  the  interior  of  the  palace.  Domestics, 
male  and  female  ;  gentlemen  of  the  household  ;  priests  ;  National 
Guards  and  Swiss  guards,  filled  the  apartments.  The  king  had 
told  the  Assembly  that  he  had  given  orders  to  the  Swiss  not  to 
fire.  The  insurgents  had  obtained  possession  of  the  Court  Royale, 
and  they  called  to  the  Swiss  at  the  windows  to  deliver  up  the 
palace.  The  Swiss  manifested  no  disposition  to  fire  upon  them. 
Some  of  the  most  furious  of  the  rabble  reached  the  vestibule. 
There  was  a  barricade  at  the  foot  of  the  stairs ;  and  when  it  was 
attempted  to  be  forced,  a  combat  began.  The  insurgents  were 
driven  back.  The  Swiss,  boldly  headed  by  two  officers,  marched 
into  the  court,  and  drove  out  the  crowd.  They  even  penetrated  to 
the  Carrousel,  and  the  multitude  fled  before  them.  Had  they  been 
supported  by  the  gendarmerie,  the  contest  might  have  ended  differ- 
ently. An  order  had  been  sent  by  the  king  that  the  Swiss  should 


540  HISTORY   OF    ENGLAND. 

repair  to  the  Assembly.  About  two  hundred  marched  thither,  firect 
upon  by  the  National  Guards.  The  insurgents  returned  to  the 
attack ;  obtained  possession  of  the  vestibule  ;  rushed  up  the  stair- 
case, which  was  defended  by  eighty  Swiss  against  the  furious 
Marseillais  and  the  pikemen  of  the  faubourgs,  till  not  a  Swiss  on 
the  staircase  was  left  alive.  A  general  massacre  of  all  within  the 
walls,  with  the  exception  of  the  women,  then  ensued.  A  large 
number  of  the  Swiss  and  National  Guards,  who  were  in  the  courts, 
attempted  to  make  their  way  to  the  Hall  of  the  Assembly,  but  the 
Swiss  were  all  picked  out  and  murdered. 

By  eleven  o'clock  on  that  morning  of  the  loth  of  Agust,  the 
Tuileries  was  in  the  complete  possession  of  the  rabble  of  Paris ; 
the  greater  number  of  its  inmates  slaughtered  ;  all  its  luxurious 
furniture,  and  works  of  art,  broken  to  pieces  or  burnt.  For  sixteen 
hours  the  king  sat  in  the  logographe  ;  and  he  and  his  family  witness- 
ed those  proceedings  of  the  Assembly  which  accomplished  another 
Revolution.  There  was  no  constitutional  party  here  now  to  control 
the  Jacobins  and  the  Girondins.  A  body  of  citizens  appeared  at 
the  bar  to  demand  the  deposition  of  the  king.  Vergniaud  retired ; 
and  soon  returned  with  the  draft  of  a  decree  by  which  a  National 
Convention  was  to  be  formed ;  and  the  chief  of  the  Executive  was 
suspended,  until  the  decision  of  the  Convention.  The  decree  was 
put  and  adopted  without  discussion.  A  new  ministry  was  ap- 
pointed. Roland,  Claviere,  and  Servan  resumed  their  offices. 
Danton  was  chosen  minister  of  justice.  The  Assembly  sate  till 
one  o'clock  in  the  morning,  the  royal  family  continuing  in  their 
close  box  all  the  time.  A  lodging  was  provided  for  them.  The 
next  morning  they  were  brought  back  to  the  Assembly,  to  listen 
to  other  decrees  of  their  masters.  Dr.  Moore  has  described 
the  scene,  at  which  he  was  present :  "  From  the  place  in  which 
I  sat  I  could  not  see  the  king,  but  I  had  a  full  view  of  the  queen, 
and  the  rest  of  the  royal  family.  Her  beauty  is  gone.  No  wonder. 
She  seemed  to  listen  with  an  undisturbed  air  to  the  speakers. 
Sometimes  she  whispered  to  her  sister-in-law,  and  to  Madame  de 
Lamballe  ;  once  or  twice  she  stood  up,  and,  leaning  forward,  sur- 
veyed every  part  of  the  hall.  A  person  near  me  remarked,  that  her 
face  indicated  rage  and  the  most  provoking  arrogance.  I  perceived 
nothing  of  that  nature ;  although  the  turn  of  the  debate,  as  well  as 
the  remarks  which  were  made  by  some  of  the  members,  must  have 
appeared  to  her  highly  insolent  and  provoking.  On  the  whole,  her 
behaviour  in  this  trying  situation  seemed  full  of  propriety  and  digni' 
fied  composure."  * 

*  "  Jounnal,"  August  n. 


Louis  XVL  — VoL  vi. 


ROYAL  FAMILY  REMOVED  TO  THE  TEMPLE.      541 

It  was  decided  on  that  day  that  the  king  and  the  royal  family 
should  be  placed  in  the  Temple — an  isolated  building  surrounded 
by  high  walls.  On  the  I3th  of  August  they  were  removed  to  this, 
their  prison  abode.  On  the  17th  of  August,  earl  Gower,  the 
British  ambassador  at  Paris,  was  recalled  by  a  letter  from  Mr. 
Dundas.  A  writer  of  great  ability  says,  "  In  defiance  of  every 
maxim  of  sound  policy,  the  English  ambassador  was  recalled  from 
France,  simply  because  that  country  chose  to  do  away  with  the 
monarchy,  and  substitute  a  republic  in  its  place."  *  This  strong 
opinion  seems  scarcely  to  be  borne  out  by  the  letter  of  recall,  signed 
by  Mr.  Dundas,  which  is  referred  to,  but  not  quoted.  "  Under  the 
present  circumstances,  as  it  appears  that  the  exercise  of  the  executive 
power  has  been  withdrawn  from  his  Most  Christian  Majesty,  the 
credential,  under  which  your  excellency  has  hitherto  acted,  can  be 
no  longer  available.  And  his  majesty  judges  it  proper,  on  this 
account,  as  well  as  most  conformable  to  the  principles  of  neutrality 
which  his  majesty  has  hitherto  observed,  that  you  should  no  longer 
remain  at  Paris.  It  is  therefore  his  majesty's  pleasure  that  you 
should  quit  it,  and  repair  to  England,  as  soon  as  you  conveniently 
can,  after  procuring  the  necessary  passports.  In  any  conversation 
which  you  may  have  occasion  to  hold  previous  to  your  departure, 
you  will  take  care  to  make  your  language  conformable  to  the 
sentiments  which  are  now  conveyed  to  you  ;  and  you  will  particularly 
take  every  opportunity  of  expressing  that,  while  his  majesty  intends 
strictly  to  adhere  to  the  principles  of  neutrality,  with  respect  to  the 
settlement  of  the  internal  government  of  France,  he,  at  the  same  time, 
considers  it  as  no  deviation  from  those  principles,  to  manifest,  by 
all  the  means  in  his  power,  his  solicitude  for  the  personal  situation 
of  their  Most  Christian  Majesties,  and  their  royal  family ;  and  he 
earnestly  and  anxiously  hopes  that  they  will,  at  least,  be  secure 
from  any  acts  of  violence,  which  could  not  fail  to  produce  one 
universal  sentiment  of  indignation  through  every  country  of  Eu- 
rope." f 

La  Fayette,  with  his  army,  was  at  Sedan,  when  the  Assembly, 
after  the  loth  of  August,  sent  three  commissioners  to  him  with 
their  decrees.  La  Fayette  caused  them  to  be  arrested  ;  refused  to 
administer  to  his  troops  the  new  oath  which  the  Assembly  had  sent ; 
and  called  upon  his  soldiers  to  repeat  the  constitutional  oath  of 
obedience  to  the  laws  and  the  king.  On  the  I7th,  when  the  conduct 
of  La  Fayette  was  known  in  Paris,  he  was  declared  a  traitor  by 
the  Assembly,  and  ordered  to  be  arrested.  New  commissioners 

*  Buckle — "  History  of  Civilization,"  vol.  i.  p.  440. 
t  "  Parliamentary  History,"  vol.  xxx.  col.  143. 


542  HISTORY   OF    ENGLAND. 

arrived  at  Sedan.  The  troops  of  La  Fayette,  beloved  as  he  was 
by  them,  began  to  waver ;  and  he  thought  it  prudent  to  quit  his 
camp  with  a  few  of  his  officers,  and  pass  into  the  Austrian  Nether- 
lands. The  Austrians  arrested  him  and  his  companions,  as  prisoners 
of  war;  and  for  five  years  he  was  confined  in  a  castle  in  Moravia. 
The  Prussian  army  continued  to  advance.  On  the  22nd  of  August, 
Longwy  was  taken  by  them,  after  a  cannonade  of  a  few  hours. 
They  blockaded  Thionville  ;  and  were  advancing  towards  Verdun. 
Paris  was  in  great  alarm  ;  and  it  was  decreed  that  thirty  thousand 
men  should  be  immediately  raised  and  equipped,  and  go  forth  to 
meet  the  invader.  The  patriotic  spirit  of  the  people  was  honourably 
excited  by  the  orators  of  the  Assembly.  Let  the  entrenchments 
round  Paris  be  completed  by  the  voluntary  labour  of  every  citizen. 
Let  a  deputation  of  the  members  of  the  Assembly  go  daily  to 
stimulate  the  labourers  and  work  with  them.  So  spake  the  fervid 
eloquence  of  Vergniaud.  But  there  were  other  orators  who  were 
preparing  for  the  ferocious  bands  whom  they  swayed,  for  deeds  of 
bloodshed  surpassing  in  atrocity  any  which  had  gone  before.  On 
the  2pth  of  August,  by  order  of  the  Commune,  every  citizen  was 
required  to  be  in  his  house  by  six  o'clock  in  the  evening.  The 
barriers  were  closed.  What  was  to  happen  no  one  knew.  At  one 
o'clock  in  the  morning,  patrols  of  pikemen  were  going  through  the 
streets,  for  the  purpose  of  entering  every  house,  under  the  pretence 
of  searching  for  arms,  but  really  to  carry  off  every  suspected  royal- 
ist. That  night  the  prisons  were  filled  with  hundreds  of  destined 
victims. 

On  the  morning  of  the  2nd  of  September,  Paris  was  in  great 
agitation.  It  was  reported  that  Verdun  had  been  betrayed  by 
treachery  into  the  hands  of  the  Prussians.  Some  who  mixed  with 
the  crowd  shook  their  heads,  saying,  that  the  traitors  within  Paris 
were  most  to  be  feared.  At  noon,  the  people  were  started  by  the 
firing  of  cannon,  and  by  the  peals  of  the  tocsin.  Danton,  in  the 
morning  sitting  of  the  Assembly,  said  that  the  commissioners  of  the 
Commune  were  going  to  invite  the  citizens  by  solemn  proclamation, 
to  go  forth  to  the  defence  of  their  country.  "  The  tocsin  which  is 
about  to  sound  is  not  a  signal  of  alarm ;  it  is  the  signal  for  attacking 
the  enemies  of  our  country  :  in  order  to  vanquish  them  we  require 
audacity,  audacity,  audacity."  The  Assembly  sate  again  in  the 
evening.  Municipal  officers  came  to  announce  that  the  people  had 
massacred  two  hundred  priests  at  the  church  Des  Cannes  ;  that 
crowds  were  collected  round  the  prisons,  and  were  about  to  force 
the  doors.  The  Assembly  appointed  five  of  their  members  to  exhort 
the  people  to  tranquillity.  They  returned  to  say  that  the  darkness 


THE  MASSACRES   OF   SEPTEMBER.  543 

prevented  them  seeing  what  was  going  on.  Many  in  that  Assembly 
knew  too  well  what  was  going  on.  Throughout  that  night  of  horror 
the  city  which,  two  hundred  and  twenty  years  before,  had  been 
polluted  by  the  massacre  of  St.  Bartholomew  at  the  command  of 
a  crowned  bigot,  in  the  name  of  Religion,  was  again  polluted  by  a 
massacre  as  frightful,  at  the  command  of  furious  demagogues,  in 
the  name  of  liberty.  The  priests  in  the  prison  of  Des  Carmes, 
once  a  convent,  were  those  who  have  been  sentenced  to  deporta- 
tion. They  comprised  many  of  the  higher  clergy.  The  greater 
number  of  the  National  Guards  and  gendarmerie  who  were  posted 
at  this  prison,  were  removed  by  order  in  the  morning.  The  crowd 
of  assassins,  headed  by  Cerat,  a  friend  of  Danton  and  of  Marat, 
forced  the  gates.  They  immediately  commenced  shooting  down 
the  priests  in  the  garden  and  the  cloisters  ;  stabbed  them  in  their 
cells  ;  or  brought  them  out  of  the  church,  one  by  one,  to  be  mur- 
dered. For  four  hours  this  terrible  work  went  on,  till  no  victim 
remained.  One  hundred  and  ninety  bodies  were  carried  away  in 
carts.  At  the  prison  of  the  Abbaye,  after  a  few  murders  in  the 
afternoon,  a  general  slaughter  took  place  as  night  drew  on.  A 
tribunal  was  formed,  for  the  pretended  trial  of  the  prisoners.  The 
trial  consisted  of  identifying  the  prisoners  by  the  entries  on  the 
prison  rolls.  That  ceremony  performed,  the  president,  Maillard, 
the  leader  of  the  women  to  Versailles  on  the  5th  of  October,  cried, 
"  To  the  prison  of  La  Force," — and  the  man  thus  condemned  to 
death  by  a  word,  well  understood,  which  sealed  his  fate,  was 
butchered  as  he  passed  to  the  outer  court.  Thirty-eight  Swiss 
in  the  prison  were  put  to  death  without  this  ceremony.  The 
murderers  became  tired  as  the  night  advanced ;  but  they  were 
again  ready  for  their  business  in  the  morning.  Billaud  de  Var- 
ennes,  one  of  the  functionaries  of  the  municipality,  arrived  at 
the  Abbaye,  and  presented  to  each  of  the  executioners  twenty-four 
livres  as  his  reward.  "  Think  you,"  said  a  baker's  boy,  "  that  I 
have  only  earned  twenty-four  livres  ?  I  have  killed  more  than 
forty  myself."  The  Commune  paid  the  dissatisfied  scoundrels 
their  miserable  wages.  To  detail  the  atrocities  which  were 
committed  at  every  prison  throughout  Paris,  would  be  to  make 
our  readers  as  sick  at  heart  as  we  are  in  reading  of  them  in 
the  narratives  of  eye  witnesses.  The  prison  of  La  Force  was 
the  scene  of  a  crime  that  history  cannot  shrink  from  recording. 
That  prison  contained  the  persons  belonging  to  the  Court, 
whose  lives  were  spared  on  the  loth  of  August.  Amongst  the 
ladies  there  was  the  Princesse  de  Lamballe,  the  intimate  f.  'end 
of  the  queen.  When  the  slaughter  of  the  prisoners  had  been 


544     •  HISTORY   OF   ENGLAND. 

nearly  completed,  this  beautiful  woman  was  brought  before  the 
tribunal,  where  two  members  of  the  Commune  presided.  The 
judges  required  her  to  swear  love  of  equality  and  liberty,  and 
hatred  to  the  king  and  queen.  "  I  cannot  swear  the  last,"  she 
said ;  "  it  is  not  in  my  heart."  She  was  led  to  the  door.  When 
she  saw  the  heaps  of  dead  she  uttered  a  cry  of  agony.  She  was 
instantly  struck  down.  Her  head  was  placed  upon  a  pike ;  and 
was  borne  in  horrid  procession  to  the  Temple.  By  the  permission 
of  the  commissioners  of  the  Commune,  the  ruffians  were  allowed  to 
exhibit  the  head  before  the  windows  of  the  royal  apartments.  The 
king  saw  it ;  but  his  presence  of  mind  saved  the  queen  from  be- 
holding this  terrible  spectacle. 

Of  the  origin  of  these  dreadful  transactions  there  can  be  no 
doubt.  They  were  not  the  result  of  any  spontaneous  popular 
movement.  They  were  organized  by  the  Commune,  acting  by 
their  committee  of  surveillance,  and  pressed  on  by  Danton  and 
Marat.  They  were  tolerated  by  the  Assembly.  No  attempt  was 
made  to  repress  them  by  the  commanding  officers  of  the  National 
Guards.  A  circular  was  issued  on  the  3rd  of  September,  in  the 
name  of  the  Commune  of  Paris,  to  inform  the  departments  that 
a  portion  of  the  ferocious  conspirators  detained  in  the  prisons  had 
been  put  to  death  by  the  people — "  acts  of  justice  which  appeared 
to  them  indispensable."  The  massacre  was  defended  as  the  sub- 
version of  a  conspiracy.  The  massacre,  it  was  maintained,  pre- 
vented Paris  from  being  given  up  to  foreign  troops.  Dumont,  writing 
to  Romilly  from  lord  Lansdown's  seat  at  Bowood,  says  :  "  I  walk 
about  half  the  day  in  a  state  of  the  greatest  agitation,  from  the  im- 
possibility of  remaining  still,  with  my  thoughts  fixed  upon  all  the 
sad  events  which  are  flowing  from  a  source  whence  we  had  flat- 
tered ourselves  human  happiness  was  to  arise."  But  he  then 
turns  to  other  thoughts  as  a  counterpoise  : — that  the  Parisians  "  in 
their  last  paroxysm  murdered  the  prisoners,  because  a  report  had 
been  spread  that,  at  the  approach  of  the  duke  of  Brunswick,  the 
prisons  would  be  thrown  open,  and  that  the  prisoners  would  pur- 
chase their  pardon  by  serving  their  king,  and  turning  against  the 
patriots."  To  regard  these  massacres  as  the  spontaneous  move- 
ment of  a  people  infuriated  by  the  approach  of  a  foreign  army,  is  a 
belief  professed  by  one  of  the  most  recent  writers  on  the  French 
Revolution  •  u  A  great  cry  is  uttered,  '  The  enemy  is  at  Verdun.' 
Then,  seized  with  the  fatal  idea  that  liberty  is  entering  upon  its 
agony  ;  that  tho  torch  lifted  up  by  France  to  illuminate  the  world, 
is  about  to  be  snatched  from  her,  to  be  extinguished  under  the 
hoofs  of  the  Prussian  horse  ,  that  the  Revolution  has  no  quarter 


THE   MASSACRES    OF   SEPTEMBER.  545 

to  expect ;  that  justice  is  dying,  that  justice  is  dead — the  spirits  of 
men  yield  to  a  black  delirium,  which  formalizes  itself,  O  eternal 
grief,  in  these  three  words  of  blood,  '  To  the  Prisons.'"  *  Another 
eloquent  Frenchman, — as  experienced  as  he  from  whom  we  have 
quoted  in  the  immediate  causes  of  revolutionary  action, — thus 
speaks  of  the  September  massacres  :  "  After  having  for  a  long 
time  cast  the  blame  upon  a  sudden  and  irresistible  movement  of 
the  people,  attempts  have  been  made  to  confine  the  crime  to  the 
smallest  possible  number  of  actors.  History  has  no  such  compla1- 
sauce  :  the  idea  belongs  to  Marat,  the  acceptance  and  responsible 
ity  to  Danton,  the  execution  to  the  council  of  surveillance,  accom- 

pliceship  to  many,  and  dastardly  tolerance  to  almost  all 

In  Marat  it  was  a  thirst  for  blood,  the  last  remedy  of  a  society 
which  he  wished  to  destroy,  in  order  to  resuscitate  it  according  to 
his  dream.  In  the  mind  of  Danton  it  was  a  master-stroke  of  pol- 
icy ;  he  consented  to  become  the  phenomenon  of  the  revolutionary 
movement.  He  believed  that  his  deeds,  purified  by  the  intention, 
and  by  time,  would  lose  their  character  of  ferocity  ;  that  his  name 
would  become  greater  when  he  had  quitted  the  stage ;  and  that  he 
would  be  vegarded  as  the  colossus  of  the  Revolution.  It  has  since 
been  said  that  he  saved  his  country  and  the  Revolution  by  these 
murders,  and  that  our  victories  are  their  excuses.  But  those  who 
assert  this  are  deceived,  as  he  was.  A  people  who  need  to  be  in- 
toxicated with  blood  to  urge  them  to  defend  their  country,  is  a 
nation  of  villains,  and  not  a  nation  of  heroes.  Heroism  is  the 
reverse  of  assassination  ;  and  as  for  the  Revolution  its  prestige 
was  in  its  justice  and  morality  ;  and  this  massacre  sullied  it  in  the 
eyes  of  all  Europe."  f 

The  massacres  of  September  produced  a  signal  change  in  the 
feelings  of  the  British  nation  towards  the  French.  "  How,"  says 
Romilly,' "  could  we  ever  be  so  deceived  in  the  character  of  the 
French  nation  as  to  think  them  capable  of  liberty  ?  wretches  who, 
after  all  their  professions  and  boasts  about  liberty,  and  patriotism, 
and  courage,  and  dying,  and  after  taking  oath  after  oath,  in  the  very 
moment  when  their  country  is  invaded  and  an  enemy  is  marching 
through  it  unresisted,  employ  whole  days  in  murdering  women,  and 
priests,  and  prisoners  !  .'.  ...  We  might  as  well  think  of  es- 
tablishing a  republic  of  tigers  in  some  forest  of  Africa  as  of  main- 
taining a  free  government  among  such  monsters."  %  Those  who 
had  conceived  the  greatest  hopes  of  the  French  Revolution — 

*  Louis  Blanc — "  Histoire  de  la  Revolution,"  tome  x.  p.  4. 
t  Lamartine — "  Girondins,"  liv.  xxiv.  c.  22. 
%  "  Memoirs^'—  Letter  to  Dumont,  Sept.  io~ 

VOL.  VI.— 3? 


546  HISTORY   OF   ENGLAND. 

whose  confidence  in  its  chief  agents  had  been  little  diminished  by 
the  previous  excesses  of  the  mobs  of  Paris — shrank  appalled  from 
the  contemplation  of  the  incidents  of  the  2nd  of  September.  Fox 
writes  to  lord  Holland,  "  I  had  just  made  up  my  mind  to  the  events 
of  the  loth  of  August,  when  the  horrid  accounts  of  the  2nd  of  this 
month  arrived  ;  and  I  really  considered  the  horrors  of  that  day 
and  night  as  the  most  heart-breaking  event  that  ever  happened  to 
those  who,  like  me,  are  fundamentally  and  unalterably  attached  to 
the  true  cause."  *  These  fearful  scenes  had,  however,  their  apolo- 
gists in  some  of  the  extreme  admirers  of  revolutionary  principles. 
Writing  to  his  son,  Borke  adverts  to  "  the  abominable  palliation  of 
these  horrors  in  our  abominable  newspaper."  f  He  regards  the 
scenes  of  September  as  a  fresh  argument  to  reprove  the  govern- 
ment for  their  apparent  indifference  to  these  momentous  occur- 
rences :  "  I  know  it  is  the  opinion  of  his  majesty's  ministers,  that 
the  new  principles  may  be  encouraged,  and  even  triumph  over 
every  interior  and  exterior  resistance,  and  may  even  overturn  other 
states  as  they  have  that  of  France,  without  any  sort  of  danger  of 
their  extending,  in  their  consequences  to  this  kingdom."  J  Thus 
he  writes  to  lord  Grenville  on  the  ipth  of  September,  "  talking  and 
reasoning  as  if  a  perpetual  and  organized  anarchy  had  been  a  pos- 
sible thing."  §  In  this  September  the  English  ministry  were  not 
moved  by  the  admonitions  of  Burke,  or  the  terrors  of  the  posses- 
sors of  property,  to  think  of  departing  from  their  safe  course  of 
neutrality,  even  though  they  had  recalled  the  ambassador  to  the 
king  of  France.  But,  having  a  strong  conviction  how  the  domina- 
tion of  the  Jacobins  would  end,  they  resolved  that  the  accustomed 
English  hospitality  to  political  fugitives  should  not  be  granted  to 
regicides.  Lord  Grenville's  letter  to  his  brother,  of  the  2oth  of 
September,  is  interesting:  ||  "  The  detail  of  the  late  events  at 
Paris  is  so  horrible,  that  I  do  not  like  to  let  my  mind  dwell  upon 
them;  and  yet  I  fear  that  scene  of  shocking  and  savage  barbarity 
is  very  far  from  its  close.  I  deliver  this  day  to  the  Imperial  and 
Neapolitan  Ministers  a  note,  with  l'  >  formal  assurance  that  in 
case  of  the  murder  of  the  king  or  queen,  the  persons  guilty  of  that 
crime  shall  not  be  allowed  any  asylum  in  the  king's  dominions. 
Opinions  are  a  little  doubtful  about  the  best  means  of  giving  effect 
to  this  promise,  should  the  case  arise.  Our  lawyers  seem  clear, 

*  "  Correspondence  of  Fox,"  vol.ii.  p.  370. 

t  This  newspaper  was  probably  the  "  Morning  Chronicle,"  then  the  property  of  Jamta 
Perry. 

}  "  Correspondence  of  Burke,"  vol.  iv.  p.  7.  §  Coleridge — "  Friend,"  Essay  L 

|  "  Court  &c.,  of  George  III.,"  vol.  ii.  p.  217. 


THE   MASSACRES   OF   SEPTEMBER.  547 

and  Blackstone  expressly  asserts,  that  the  king  may  prevent  any 
alien  from  coming  into  the  kingdom,  or  remaining  there.  But  this 
power  has  so  rarely  been  used,  that  it  may,  perhaps,  be  better  to 
have  a  special  Act  of  Parliament  applying  to  this  case.  This, 
however,  relates  only  to  the  mode.  I  imagine  everybody  will 
think  the  thing  itself  right,  and  some  people  seem  to  hope  it  may 
prevent  the  commission  of  the  crime  in  question.  In  this  hope  I 
am  not  very  sanguine." 


HISTORY  OF   ENGLAND. 


CHAPTER  XXIX. 

Opening  of  the  French  National  Convention. — The  Prussian  Array  enters  France.— 
Battle  of  Valmy. — Retreat  of  the  Prussians. — Battle  of  Jemappes. — Opening  of  the 
British  Parliament. — Disposition  of  the  British  Government. — Aggressive  Decrees  of 
the  French  Convention. — Mr.  Pitt's  continued  desire  for  non-intervention. — Louis 
XVI.  and  his  family  prisoners  in  the  Temple. — Louis  brought  to  the  bar  of  the  Con- 
vention.— Anxiety  for  his  fate  in  the  British  Parliament.  —Political  manoeuvres  of 
lord  Loughborough. — The  Whig  party  broken  up,  and  Loughborough  made  Chan- 
cellor.— Influence  of  this  negotiation  on  Mr.  Pitt's  policy. — State  of  public  opinion 
in  England. — Trial  of  Thomas  Paine  for  libel,  as  the  author  of  the  "  Rights  of  Man." 
— The  Alien  Bill. — Correspondence  with  Chauvelin. — Trial  of  the  king  of  France. — 
Votes  of  the  Convention. — Execution  of  the  king — Proceedings  of  the  British  Parlia- 
ment.— Note  on  the  Dagger-Scene. 

THE  National  Convention  held  its  first  sitting  on  the  22nd  of  Sep- 
tember. This  body,  which  had  been  elected  throughout  France 
amidst  the  excitement  of  a  foreign  invasion,  and  chiefly  under  the 
influence  of  the  Jacobins  and  Girondins,  was  not  likely  to  number 
many  men  of  those  moderate  opinions  which  had  been  denominated 
"constitutional."  It  comprised — with  many  who  were  mere  pro- 
vincial adventurers — some  of  the  more  distinguished  of  the  two 
former  assemblies ;  new  men  of  repute  in  science  and  letters  :  mag- 
istrates ;  lawyers  ; — an  assembly  not  wanting  in  capacity  for  judi- 
cious legislation,  if  the  violent  members  had  not  been  certain  to 
overpower  the  peaceable.  The  leading  Jacobins  ruled  the  Con- 
vention through  the  mobs  of  Paris.  They  were  a  contemptible 
minority ;  but  they  usurped  the  power  of  a  majority  in  consequence 
of  the  pusillanimity  of  those  who  shrank  with  horror  from  their 
atrocities,  but  who  were  afraid  to  endanger  their  own  popularity 
by  checking  the  ferocity  of  the  people.  Such  were  the  Giron-< 
dins.  Opposed  to  bloodshed,  they  tolerated  the  massacres  of 
September.  They  had  dreams  of  a  pure  republican  form  of 
government  to  arise  out  of  this  whirlwind  of  anarchy ;  and 
they  suffered  the  Jacobins,  who  cared  only  to  destroy,  to  dom- 
inate in  the  Convention.  The  system  of  the  terrorists,  such  as 
Marat,  was  that  of  inspiring  fear  in  the  quiet  and  industrious  por- 
tions of  the  community,  and  they  especially  sought  to  strike  terror 
into  all  who  clung,  however  doubtfully,  to  monarchical  institutions. 
The  first  act  of  the  Convention  was  to  decree  the  abolition  of  roy- 


PRUSSIANS    ENTER    FRANCE.  ^4g 

alty.  The  proposition  was  a  surprise  to  the  Girondins,  but  they 
accepted  it,  not  to  be  behind  the  Jacobins.  On  the  22nd  of  Sep- 
tember France  was  declared  to  be  a  Republic. 

On  this  day,  when  the  final  blow  was  given  to  that  power  which 
for  centuries  in  France  had  been  deemed  identical  with  the  State 
the  Convention  received  the  news  of  a  conflict  at  Valmy,  where 
the  old  troops  of  the  monarchy,  mixed  with  the  raw  levies  of  the 
Revolution,  came  into  conflict  with  the  trained  veterans  of  a  military 
despotism,  and  stopped  the  advance  of  the  invaders.  The  Prussians 
had  met  with  little  impediment  in  their  march  towards  Paris.  They 
entered  France  on  the  3oth  of  July.  Longwy  had  been  taken  at  the 
end  of  August ;  and  Verdun  capitulated  on  the  2nd  of  September. 
There  was  now  no  fortified  place  to  arrest  their  advance  to  the  capital. 
But  there  was  ground  through  which  the  Prussians  must  march, 
which  would  form  a  strong  point  of  defence — the  wooded  ridge  of 
the  Argonne  forest.  Dumouriez  put  his  finger  on  this  spot  on  the 
map,  and  exclaimed,  "  This  is  the  Thermopylae  of  France."  He 
out-generalled  the  duke  of  Brunswick.  On  the  4th  of  September, 
by  a  rapid  movement  in  the  very  face  of  the  enemy,  the  bold  and 
adroit  Frenchman  had  occupied  the  main  passes  of  the  forest,  and 
had  taken  up  a  station  of  great  strength  at  Grandpre*.  The 
weather  was  extremely  wet.  The  country  was  flooded.  The 
invading  army  was  without  food,  and  the  peasantry  were  hostile. 
Nevertheless,  Dumouriez  had  his  own  troubles  ;  and  not  the  least 
was  that  some  of  his  troops  shrunk  from  facing  the  legions  that 
Frederick  the  Great  had  led  to  victory.  But  by  exhortation  and 
menace  he  inspired  the  timid  with  some  ardour,  and  his  recruits 
were  rallied  at  the  cry  of  "  Vive  lapatrie .'  "  For  many  days  there 
was  a  constant  struggle  to  force  these  passes.  The  French  held 
their  ground.  At  length,  on  the  iQth,  Kellermann,  who  had  seen 
service,  and  who  attained  high  command  in  the  wars  of  Napoleon, 
arrived  with  fifteen  thousand  men,  and  on  the  2oth  fought  that 
battle  known  as  the  Cannonade  of  Valmy.  This  was  the  first 
battle  of  the  Revolution,  and  it  was  of  sufficient  importance  to 
confer  upon  Kellermann  his  title  of  Due  de  Valmy  after  he  had 
fought  many  battles  of  the  Empire.  In  that  conflict  Goethe  wn.s 
serving  in  the  German  army,  with  the  contingent  of  Weimar.  There 
also,  on  the  side  of  the  revolutionists,  was  the  son  of  the  duke 
of  Orleans,  who  will  be  king  of  the  French  long  after  his  father 
has  lost  his  head  as  the  despised  Egalite.  The  battle  lasted  twelve 
hours.  After  this  event,  some  extraordinary  negotiations  went  on 
between  the  French  and  Prussian  head-quarters  ;  and  on  the  3oth 
of  September  the  duke  of  Brunswick  broke  up  his  camp,  and  com- 


550  HISTORY   OF   ENGLAND. 

menced  a  retreat.  It  is  now  known  that  a  secret  agreement  was 
concluded  between  the  duke  and  Dumouriez ;  by  which  it  was 
determined  that  the  Prussians,  having  giving  up  Longwy  and  Ver- 
dun, should  retreat  unmolested,  assurances  having  been  required 
that  the  royal  family  of  France  should  be  saved,  and  an  effort  be 
made  to  restore  the  constitutional  monarchy.  Danton  was  a  party 
to  this  negotiation.  He  desired  to  free  France  from  the  Prussian 
invaders  ;  but  he  was  powerless,  certainly  unwilling,  to  perform 
the  conditions  for  which  the  king  of  Prussia  had  in  decency  stipula- 
ted. Dumouriez  was  cautious  not  to  promise  too  much,  but  simply 
to  raise  hopes  that  he  had  no  ability  to  fulfil.  The  loss  of  the  in- 
vaders by  disease  was  very  great.  Their  disgrace  was  irrepar- 
able. 

The  army  which  had  entered  France  was  composed  of  thirty- 
four  thousand  Prussians,  ten  thousand  Austrians,  and  eight  thou- 
sand French  emigrants.  This  force  appeared  to  the  European 
powers  more  than  sufficient  to  march  to  Paris  and  restore  the  mon- 
archy. The  British  government  was  entirely  in  ignorance  of  the 
true  cause  which  produced  the  retreat.  Lord  Grenville  writes  on 
the  nth  of  October  to  the  marquis  of  Buckingham,  "We  are  all 
much  disappointed  with  the  result  of  the  great  expectations  that 
had  been  formed  from  the  duke  of  Brunswick's  campaign.  Ac- 
cording to  the  best  accounts  I  can  get  of  a  business  involved  in 
almost  inextricable  mystery,  the  flux,  which  had  got  into  his  camp, 
was  the  true  cause  of  his  retreat."  *  The  extravagance  of  "  the 
great  expectations  that  had  been  formed,"  may  be  collected  from 
a  letter  of  Addington  :  "  Verdun  is  taken — that  we  are  sure  of ; 
and  the  duke  of  Brunswick  will  soon  strike  a  stroke  which,  as 
lord  Chatham  said,  will  resound  through  the  universe."  The  san- 
guine Speaker  then  quotes  some  lines,  beginning  "  France  shall 
perish  ;  "  and" holds,  with  Burke,  that  "  the  bulk  of  the  nation  will, 
like  madmen,  be  cured  when  they  have  been  subdued."  f  The 
resolution  of  the  English  government  not  to  join  the  coalition 
against  France,  has  been  ascribed  as  a  reason  for  the  king  of 
Prussia  not  following  up  the  bold  resolves  of  the  duke  of  Bruns- 
wick's proclamation.  Another  reason  has  been  alleged ;  that  the 
disappointment  of  the  hope  of  a  rapid  march  to  Paris  determined 
the  rapacious  Prussian  monarch  to  return  home,  that  he  might 
look  after  a  proper  share  in  the  partition  of  Poland.  The  predom- 
inant selfishness  and  jealousies  of  the  two  heads  of  the  coalition 
were  at  this  time  a  sufficient  reason  for  the  ministry  of  Mr.  Pitt 

*  "  Court,  &c.  of  George  III."  vol.  ii.  p.  219. 
t  "  Life  of  Lord  Sidmouth,"  vol.  i.  p.  95. 


BATTLE    OF  JEMAPPES.  551 

taking  no  part  in  their  policy.  "  I  bless  God,"  says  Lord  Grenviile, 
"  that  we  had  the  wit  to  keep  ourselves  out  of  the  glorious  enter- 
prise of  the  combined  armies  ;  and  that  we  were  not  tempted  by 
the  hope  of  sharing  the  spoils  in  the  division  of  France,  nor  by 
the  prospect  of  crushing  all  democratical  principles  all  over  the 
world  at  one  blow."  *  Burke  was,  of  course,  indignant  at  this  re- 
sult of  a  French  invasion  :  "  The  united  military  glory  of  Europe 
has  suffered  a  stain  never  to  be  effaced."f  Fox,  as  might  have 
been  expected,  was  in  raptures  :  "  No  public  event,  not  excepting 
Saratoga  and  York  Town,  ever  happened  that  gave  me  so  much 
delight.  .  .  .  The  defeat  of  great  armies  of  invaders  always 
gives  me  the  greatest  satisfaction  in  reading  history,  from  Xerxes' 
time  downwards."  J 

Whilst  the  armies  of  the  coalition  were  retreating  from  the 
Meuse,  the  Austrian  army,  under  the  archduke  Albert,  was  be- 
^ieging  Lille.  On  the  2gth  of  September  the  trenches  were  opened 
against  the  ramparted  city,  which  had  so  stoutly  resisted  the  as- 
saults of  Marlborough  and  Eugene.  For  a  week  was  Lille  bom- 
barded. There  was  a  garrison  of  ten  thousand  ardent  republicans 
and  a  population  that  was  not  terrified  whilst  their  poor  dwellings 
were  in  flames.  Lille  holds  out.  Dumouriez  is  approaching. 
The  Austrians  raise  the  siege  on  the  yth  of  October ;  and  France 
sings  another  song  of  triumph.  The  French  then  become  the  in- 
vaders. A  hundred  thousand  men,  of  whom  Dumouriez  has  the 
chief  command,  enter  Flanders.  On  the  6th  of  November  was 
fought  the  battle  of  Jemappes.  The  cannonade  of  Valmy,  as  the 
name  expresses,  was  scarcely  to  be  called  a  battle,  for  the  armies 
cannonaded  each  other  from  opposite  heights  divided  by  a  river, 
and  never  came  to  close  action.  Jemappes  was  the  scene  of  a 
terrific  struggle.  Of  the  composition  of  the  French  army  there 
are  discordant  accounts.  Lamartine  represents  the  cavalry  as  con- 
sisting of  old  soldiers,  but  says  that  the  mass  was  composed  of 
volunteers,  inexperienced  in  manoeuvre.  Bonaparte  at  St.  Helena 
said  that  the  Republic  was  not  saved  by  the  recruits  and  volun- 
teers, but  by  the  old  troops  of  the  monarchy.  At  any  rate,  there 
was  enthusiasm  opposed  to  disciplined  steadiness,  and  novel  tactics 
were  matched  against  established  routine.  The  Austrians  were 
beaten,  although  the  loss  on  the  side  of  the  French  was  more 
severe  than  that  of  their  enemy.  In  this  battle  Louis  Philippe 
gained  those  laurels  which  were  still  fresh  when  he  was  chosen  to 

*  "Court,  &c.  of  George  III."  p.  222. 

f  "  Correspondence  of  Burke,"  vol.  iv.  p.  to. 

t  "  Correspondence  of  Fox,"  vol.  ii.  p.  372. 


55 2  HISTORY   OF   ENGLAND. 

fill  the  throne  from  which  the  other  branch  of  the  Bourbons  was 
ejected.  Dumouriez  was  soon  in  possession  of  all  the  important 
iortresses  of  the  Low  Countries,  the  Austrians  retreating  before 
him.  On  the  3oth  of  November  he  was  in  Antwerp.  The  conse- 
quence of  this  occupation  was  the  opening  of  the  Scheldt  to  the 
ships  of  all  nations,  in  defiance  of  the  treaty  of  Miinster,  by  which 
the  navigation  of  that  river  was  closed  against  the  people  of  the 
Low  Countries.  The  French  armies  were  equally  successful 
against  the  Sardinian  government,  and  Savoy  was  then  annexed 
to  the  French  republic  as  the  department  of  Mont  Blanc. 

The  Session  of  Parliament  was  opened  by  proclamation  on 
the  1 3th  of  December.  The  term  fixed  for  the  opening  had  been 
anticipated  by  three  weeks.  In  the  king's  speech  it  was  stated 
that  the  industry  employed  to  excite  discontent  on  various  pretexts 
has  appeared  to  proceed  from  a  design  for  the  subversion  of  all 
order  and  government ;  "and  this  design  has  evidently  been  pur- 
sued in  connection  and  concert  with  persons  in  foreign  countries." 
His  majesty  went  on  to  say,  that  he  had  observed  a  strict  neutrality 
in  the  present  war  on  the  continent,  and  had  uniformly  abstained 
from  any  interference  with  regard  to  the  internal  affairs  of  France  ; 
but  that  the  indications  of  an  intention  to  excite  disturbances  in 
other  countries,  to  disregard  the  rights  of  neutral  nations,  and  to 
pursue  views  of  conquest  and  aggrandizement,  had  rendered  it 
necessary  to  look  to  means  of  internal  defence,  and  to  take  steps 
for  augmenting  the  naval  and  military  forces.  "  These  exertions  are 
necessary  in  the  present  state  of  affairs,  and  are  best  calculated 
both  to  maintain  internal  tranquillity,  and  to  render  a  firm  and  tem- 
perate conduct  effectual  for  preserving  the  blessings  of  peace." 
There  was  an  animated  debate  on  the  Address  ;  but  Mr.  Pitt  was 
not  present,  having  accepted  the  office  of  Lord  Warden  of  the 
Cinque  Ports,  and  waiting  his  re-election.  It  has  been  assumed  by 
.  some,  although  the  word  "  peace  "  was  mentioned  in  the  royal 
speech,  that  immediate  war  was  the  only  thought  of  the  government, 
as  it  was  clearly  the  principle  upon  which  Burke  would  have  acted. 
But  the  proximate  cause  of  the  outbreak  of  that  tremendous  war 
with  France  which,  with  a  very  brief  interval,  lasted  from  1793  to 
1815,  is  a  matter  of  historical  interest,  upon  which  opinions  are 
still  divided.  The  action  of  the  English  government  may,  however, 
be  traced  step  by  step.  Five  weeks  before  the  meeting  of  parlia- 
ment, lord  Grenville  wrote  to  his  brother,  with  reference  to  the 
position  of  the  states  of  Europe  as  regarded  France  ;  "  we  shall  do 
nothing  ;  "  and  he  even  looks  to  "  the  repeal  of  taxes,"  as  one  of 
the  surest  means  of  "  keeping  the  country  quiet."  *  On  the  I3th 

*  "  Court,  &c.,  of  George  III.,"  vol.  ii.  p.  224. 


DISPOSITION   OF   THE   BRITISH   GOVERNMENT.  553 

of  November,  Mr.  Pitt,  writing  to  the  marquis  of  Stafford,  saye, 
"  Perhaps  some  opening  may  arise  which  may  enable  us  to  con- 
tribute to  the  termination  of  the  war  between  different  powers  in 
Europe,  leaving  France,  which  I  believe  is  the  best  way,  to  arrange 
its  own  internal  affairs  as  it  can."  *  Of  seditious  movements 
Grenville,  in  the  middle  of  November,  is  of  opinion  as  to  what 
his  brother  mentions  "  of  overt  acts,"  that  "  those  things  are  all 

much  exaggerated,  where  they  are  not  wholly  groundless 

It  is  not  unnatural,  nor  is  it  an  unfavdurable  symptom,  that  people 
who  are  thoroughly  frightened,  as  the  body  of  landed  gentlemen  in 
this  country  are,  should  exaggerate  these  stories  as  they  pass  from 
one  mouth  to  another."  f  The  alarm  of  others  as  well  as  the 
landed  gentlemen,  who  were  "  thoroughly  frightened  "  at  the  exist- 
ence of  violent  democratic  opinions  in  our  own  country,  however 
exaggerated  was  the  supposed  prevalence  of  these  opinions,  left 
the  government  a  very  insufficient  freedom  of  will  for  the  mainte- 
nance of  that  idea  of  neutrality  which  Mr.  Pitt  clung  to,  almost 
against  hope.  It  has  been  most  truly  said,  "  he  was  a  lover  of 
peace  and  freedom,  driven  by  a  stress  against  which  it  was  hardly 
possible  for  any  will  or  intellect  to  struggle,  out  of  the  course  to 
which  his  inclinations  pointed,  and  for  which  his  abilities  and  ac- 
quirements fitted  him,  and  forced  into  a  policy  repugnant  to  his 
feelings  and  unsuited  to  his  talents."  $ 

The  proceedings  of  the  French  Convention  with  regard  to 
other  governments  were  almost  sufficient  to  have  diverted  any 
British  minister  from  his  policy  of  neutrality,  at  the  time  when  Pitt 
was  still  of  opinion  that  it  was  best  to  leave  France  "  to  arrange  its 
own  internal  affairs  as  it  can."  On  the  J9th  of  November,  the 
National  Convention,  immediately  on  the  excitement  produced  by 
the  victory  of  Jemappes,  passed  a  decree,  in  the  name  of  the 
French  nation,  declaring  that  they  would  grant  succour  and 
fraternity  to  every  people  who  desire  to  obtain  liberty.  Mr. 
Pitt,  looking  back  in  1800  upon  the  events  which  had  led  to 
the  war,  adverting  to  this  decree  of  the  republicans,  says,  "  they 
had,  by  all  their  language,  as  well  as  by  their  examples,  shown  what 
they  understood  to  be  freedom.  They  had  sealed  their  principles 
by  the  deposition  of  their  sovereign  ;  they  had  applied  them  to 
England  by  inviting  and  encouraging  the  addresses  of  seditious 
and  traitorous  societies."  §  At  the  end  of  November,  delegates 

*  "  Diaries,  &c.,  of  George  Rose,"  p.  115. 

t  "  Court  of  George  III."  vol.  ii.  p.  228. 

$  Macaulay —  "  Biography  of  Pitt." 

§  "  Parliamentary  History,"  vol.  xxxiv.  col.   1307. 


554  HISTORY   OF   ENGLAND. 

from  the  English  "  Society  for  Constitutional  Information  "  ap 
peared  at  the  bar  of  the  French  Convention,  and  said,  "  after  the 
example  given  by  France,  Revolutions  will  become  easy."  The 
President  of  the  Convention  replied  in  a  style  of  grandiloquence: 
"  The  shades  of  Hampden  and  Sydney  hover  over  your  heads ; 
and  the  moment  without  doubt  approaches  when  the  French  will 
bring  congratulations  to  the  National  Convention  of  Great  Britain. 
Generous  Republicans  !  your  appearance  among  us  prepares  a  sub- 
ject for  history."  In  the  subsequent  correspondence  between 
M.  Chauvelin  and  lord  Grenville,  it  was  affirmed  that  "  the  French 
nation  absolutely  reject  the  idea  of  that  false  interpretation  of  the 
decree  of  the  igth  of  November,  by  which  it  might  be  supposed 
that  the  French  Republic  should  favour  insurrections,  or  excite 
disturbance  in  any  neutral  or  friendly  country  whatever."  But  the 
acts  of  the  French  Convention  were  opposed  to  its  professions. 
They  had  unquestionably  the  notion  of  extending  their  principles 
by  force.  On  the  rjth  of  December.  1792,  they  issued  a  decree 
which  required  the  French  generals  to  proclaim,  wherever  they 
marched,  the  abolition  of  all  existing  feudal  and  manorial  rights  ; 
to  declare  the  sovereignty  of  the  people,  and  the  suppression  of  all 
existing  authorities  ;  to  convoke  the  people  for  the  establishment 
of  a  provisional  government ;  and  to  place  all  public  property  un- 
der the  safeguard  of  the  French  Republic.  The  French  armies 
were  then  marching  into  Holland,  a  country  at  peace  with  France. 
This  outrageous  decree  proclaimed  that  those  who  would  not  ac- 
cept liberty  and  equality,  and  would  attempt  to  preserve  princes 
<jf  privileged  orders,  should  not  be  entitled  to  the  distinction  which 
France  had  justly  established  between  government  and  people,  and 
ought  to  be  treated  according  to  the  rigour  of  war  and  conquest. 
With  this  disposition  to  foreign  aggression,  it  is  not  surprising 
that  lord  Grenville,  in  his  correspondence  with  M.  Chauvelin,  re- 
monstrates against  the  opening  of  the  Scheldt,  and  says,  "  This 
government,  adhering  to  the  maxims  which  it  has  followed  for 
more  than  a  century,  will  never  see  with  indifference  that  France 
shall  make  herself,  either  directly  or  indirectly,  sovereign  of  the 
Low  Countries,  or  general  arbitress  of  the  rights  and  liberties  of 
Europe.  If  France  is  really  desirous  of  maintaining  friendship 
and  peace  with  England,  she  must  show  herself  disposed  to  re- 
nounce her  views  of  aggression  and  aggrandizement,  and  to  confine 
herself  within  her  own  territory,  without  insulting  other  govern- 
ments, without  disturbing  their  tranquillity,  without  violating  their 
rights."  *  This  firm  but  not  hostile  langyage  is  employed  by  the 

*  "  Parliamentary  History,"  vol.  xxxiv.  col.  255. 


MR.    PITT  DESIRES   NON-INTERVENTION.  555 

English  Secretary  of  State,  on  the  3ist  of  December;  but  on  the 
2Qth  of  that  month— as  the  world  was  first  apprised  by  Mr.  Pitt 
himself  in  1800, — his  views  were  still  eminently  pacific.  The  king 
of  France  had  been  accused  at  the  bar  of  the  Convention ;  had 
made  his  defence  by  counsel ;  and  Europe  was  waiting  in  alarm 
for  the  almost  inevitable  sentence  of  those  who  were  thirsting  for 
his  blood,  when  the  prime  minister  of  this  country,  in  answer  to  an 
application  from  Russia,  stated  to  that  power  "  the  line  of  conduct 
to  be  followed  previous  to  the  commencement  of  hostilities,  and 
with  a  view  if  possible  to  avert  them."  The  answer  to  Russia  was 
communicated  to  Prussia.  This  line  of  conduct,  wholly  opposed 
to  a  principle  of  interference,  even  at  this  moment'of  fearful  sus- 
pense, was  thus  defined  :  "  It  appears  on  the  whole,  subject,  how- 
ever, to  future  consideration  and  discussion  with  the  other  powers, 
that  the  most  advisable  step  to  be  taken  would  be,  that  sufficient 
explanation  should  be  had  with  the  powers  at  war  with  France,  in 
order  to  enable  those  not  hitherto  engaged  in  the  war  to  propose 
to  that  country  terms  of  peace.  That  these  terms  should  be,  the 
withdrawing  their  armies  within  the  limits  of  the  French  territory ; 
the  abandoning  their  conquests  ;  the  rescinding  any  acts  injurious  to 
the  sovereignty  or  rights  of  any  other  nation ;  and  the  giving,  in 
some  unequivocal  manner,  a  pledge  of  their  intention  no  longer  to 
foment  troubles,  or  to  excite  disturbances  against  other  govern- 
ments. In  return  for  these  stipulations,  the  different  powers  of 
Europe,  who  should  be  parties  to  this  measure,  might  engage  to 
abandon  all  measures  or  views  of  hostility  against  France,  or  in- 
terference in  their  internal  affairs,  and  to  maintain  a  correspondence 
and  intercourse  of  amity  with  the  existing  powers  in  that  country, 
with  whom  such  a  treaty  may  be  concluded.  If,  on  the  result  of 
this  proposal  so  made  by  the  powers  acting  in  concert,  these  terms 
should  not  be  accepted  by  France,  or  being  accepted  should  not  be 
satisfactorily  performed,  the  different  powers  might  then  engage 
themselves  to  each  other  to  enter  into  active  measures  for  the 
purpose  of  obtaining  the  ends  in  view ;  and  it  may  be  to  be  consid- 
ered, whether,  in  such  case,  they  might  not  reasonably  look  to 
some  indemnity  for  the  expenses  and  hazards  to  which  they  would 
necessarily  be  exposed."  *  Mr.  Pitt,  after  he  had  read  this  docu- 
ment, asked,  "  whether  it  is  possible  to  conceive  any  measure  to 
be  adopted  in  the  situation  in  which  we  then  stood,  which  could 
more  evidently  demonstrate  our  desire,  after  repeated  provocations, 
to  preserve  peace,  on  any  terms  consistent  with  our  safety ;  or 
whether  any  sentiment  could  now  be  suggested  which  woild  have 

*  "  Parliamentary  History,"  vol.  xxxiv.  col.  1314- 


556  HISTORY   OF   ENGLAND. 

more  plainly  marked  our  moderation,  forbearance,  and  sincerity." 
Mr.  fox,  on  that  occasion,  asked,  "whether  if  this  paper  had  been 
communicated  to  Paris  at  the  end  of  the  year  1792,  instead  of 
Petersburgh,  it  would  not  have  been  productive  of  most  seasonable 
benefits  to  mankind ;  and,  informing  the  French  in  time  of  the 
means  by  which  they  might  have  secured  the  mediation  of  Great 
Britain,  have  not  only  avoided  the  rupture  with  this  country,  but 
have  also  restored  general  peace  to  the  continent  ?  "  Mr.  Wilber- 
force  was  aware  of  the  existence  of  this  communication.  He 
writes,  in  1801,  "  I  never  was  so  earnest  with  Mr.  Pitt  on  any 
other  occasion,  as  I  was  in  my  entreaties  before  the  war  broke  out, 
that  he  would  declare  openly  in  the  House  of  Commons  that  he 
had  been,  and  then  was,  negotiating  this  treaty."  *  We  may  per- 
haps be  able  to  discover  that  there  were  complications  of  party  at 
home,  which  had  a  material  influence  on  Mr.  Pitt's  policy,  at  the 
precise  time  when,  individually,  he  was  clinging  to  the  principle  of 
non-intervention.  But  it  will  be  necessary,  before  touching  upon 
this  question,  to  take  a  brief  retrospect  of  the  progress  of  the 
French  Revolution  from  the  period  of  the  decree  of  the  22nd  of 
September,  by  which  France  became  a  Republic. 

The  king  and  his  family  were  close  prisoners  in  the  Temple 
from  the  I3th  of  August.  Their  apartments  were  in  the  gloomy 
tower  of  this  ancient  house  of  the  Templars.  The  furniture  was 
scanty;  the  accommodations  mean  and  wretched.  The  garden,  in 
which  they  were  allowed  to  walk  at  stated  times,  attended  by  guards, 
was  rank  with  vegetation,  and  not  in  the  trim  state  represented  in 
French  engravings.  At  first  the  royal  family  were  not  treated  very 
harshly,  though  they  were  watched  by  brutal  jailors,  and  had  no 
communication  with  the  outer  world.  All  the  ladies  of  the  court 
had  been  dismissed.  They  had  no  personal  attendants,  with  the 
exception  of  Clery,  who  acted  as  the  king's  valet.  He  was  a  re- 
publican, but  became  touched  with  pity  for  the  sorrows  of  the  cap- 
tives, and  was  a  faithful  friend  to  the  unhappy  monarch.  After  the 
Legislative  Assembly  was  dissolved,  the  Convention  permitted  the 
Commune  to  make  the  position  of  the  patient  Louis  and  the  proud 
Marie  Antoinette  as  miserable  as  vulgar  tyranny  could  render  it.  At 
the  end  of  September,  six  municipal  officers  had  entered  the  tower 
in  which  the  king  and  the  queen,  their  two  children,  and  the  king's 
sister,  had  supped  together,  and  read  an  order  of  the  Commune 
which  decreed  that  the  king  should  have  no  further  intercourse  with 
his  family.  They  were  separated  in  an  agony  of  grief,  and  the  king 
was  told  the  next  morning  that  he  must  not  expect  even  to  see  his 

*  "  Life  of  Wilberforce,"  vol.  ii  p.  3. 


LOUIS  BROUGHT  TO  THE  BAR  OF  THE  CONVENTION.   557 

children  again.  That  night  the  queen  passed  in  unavailing  lamen- 
tation. But  she  had  taken  her  resolution.  She  refused  all  food ; 
declaring  that  she  would  perish  with  hunger  if  the  Commune  per- 
sisted in  separating  her  from  her  husband.  The  order  of  separation 
was  then  partially  revoked.  Louis  and  his  family  were  allowed  to 
meet  three  times  a  day  at  their  meals  ;  but  a  municipal  guard  was 
always  present,  and  prevented  any  confidential  words  from  passing 
between  them.  They  were  forbidden  to  speak  low,  or  in  a  foreign 
language.  As  the  crisis  approached  which  was  contemplated  as  the 
final  blow  to  Royalty,  precautions,  rendered  wholly  unnecessary  by 
the  religious  principles  and  the  calm  temper  of  the  king,  were  taken 
by  the  Commune  to  prevent  any  attempt  at  self-destruction.  Every 
cutting  instrument  was  taken  away  from  the  prisoners.  The  queen 
and  princesses  could  no  longer  repair  the  small  stock  of  clothing 
with  which  they  were  provided.  They  were  deprived  of  pen,  ink, 
and  paper.  The  little  boy  could  no  longer  be  taught  to  write. 
Persecuted  as  they  were,  the  king  showed  no  impatience  under  his 
captivity.  The  queen  was  not  without  hope  that  the  pity  which 
she  had  inspired  in  two  of  the  officers  of  the  Commune  might  lead 
to  some  measures  for  the  escape  of  herself  and  those  she  loved 
from  the  fate  which  seemed  impending  over  them. 

The  proceedings  of  the  Convention  were  regularly  published  in 
the  newspapers  of  Paris ;  whose  contents  were  bawled  out  by  the 
hawkers  under  the  windows  of  the  Temple.  Clery  could  thus  ob- 
tain some  vague  information,  which  he  communicated  to  Louis.  On 
the  6th  of  November,  a  report  was  made  to  the  Convention  by  an 
extraordinary  committee,  "on  the  crimes  of  the  late  king."  On  the 
7th  a  Committee  of  Legislation  also  reported  on  the  question  whether 
Louis  can  be  tried  for  the  crimes  which  he  is  charged  with  having 
committed  on  the  Constitutional  throne  ;  and  by  whom  must  he  be 
tried.  The  Report  concluded  by  proposing,  as  the  basis  of  a  de- 
cree, that  Louis  could  be  tried,  and  that  he  should  be  tried  by  the 
National  Convention.  This  question  was  debated  through  the 
month  of  November,  some  maintaining  the  inviolability  of  the  king; 
others  pitying  him ;  but  scarcely  one  daring  to  defend  him  ;  for  the 
belief  was  general  that  he  was  the  cause  of  the  invasion  of  France. 
It  was  decreed  that  the  trial  should  proceed;  and  on  the  6th  of 
December,  a  Committee  was  appointed  to  prepare  an  act  of  im- 
peachment against  Louis  Capet.  It  was  then  resolved  that  he 
should  be  brought  to  the  bar  of  the  Convention  to  hear  this  docu- 
ment read,  and  to  answer  questions  which  should  be  put  to  him  by 
the  President.  He  was  then  to  be  remanded ;  and,  after  being 
finally  heard,  the  Convention  would  pronounce  on  his  fate,  by 


55^  HISTORY   OF    ENGLAND. 

calling  on  each  member  separately  for  his  vote,  which  should  be 
given  openly  at  the  tribune.  On  the  nth  of  December  the  king 
was  brought  to  the  Convention  in  the  carriage  of  Chambon,  the 
mayor  of  Paris.  He  was  there  allowed  a  seat.  The  impeachment 
was  read  ;  the  questions,  many  of  them  very  vague,  were  answered 
with  precision  by  the  king  wherever  they  were  capable  of  an  answer. 
He  was  not  always  candid  ;  but  the  principle  of  English  law  that 
an  accused  person  should  not  be  called  upon  to  criminate  himself 
will  be  his  justification  with  us.  He  asked  for  counsel,  and  after  some 
debate  the  request  was  granted.  There  was  an  interval  of  fifteen 
days  before  the  king  again  appeared  at  the  bar  of  the  Convention. 
The  amount  of  commiseration  which  Louis  was  likely  to  receive 
from  his  judges  was  sufficiently  manifested  by  a  decree  of  the  I5th 
of  December,  that  he  should  only  see  his  children,  and  the  children 
should  not  see  their  mother  or  their  aunt,  till  his  final  examination. 
This  was  to  isolate  the  poor  king  from  all  his  family,  for  he  would 
not  separate  the  children  from  their  mother. 

Lord  Malmesbury  enters  in  his  Diary  of  the  22nd  of  Decem- 
ber, "  Fox  carried  me  home ;  he  expressed  great  horror  at  the 
decret  of  the  I5th  December,  issued  by  the  National  Convention." 
The  feelings  of  men  of  all  parties  in  the  British  Parliament  as  to 
the  probable  issue  of  the  trial  of  Louis  XVI.,  had  been  strongly 
expressed  in  proceedings  on  the  2oth  of  December.  On  the  I5th 
a  motion  of  Mr.  Fox,  for  an  Address  to  the  king  to  send  a  minis- 
ter to  Paris  to  treat  with  those  persons  who  exercise  provisionally 
the  functions  of  executive  government  in  France,  had  been  rejected 
without  a  division,  after  a  debate  in  which  the  passions  of  those 
who  took  very  different  views  of  the  French  Revolution  had  been 
called  forth  in  a  way  which  showed  how  unlikely  was  the  question 
of  war  or  peace  to  be  treated  with  calmness.  But  there  was  little 
hesitation,  five  days  later,  as  to  the  expression  of  an  unanimous 
opinion  of  the  public  sentiment  of  England  on  the  situation  of  the 
king  of  France  and  of  his  family.  Mr.  Sheridan  said  "there  was 
not  one  man  of  any  description  or  party  who  did  not  deprecate, 
and  who  would  not  deplore,  the  fate  of  those  persecuted  and  un- 
fortunate victims,  should  the  apprehended  catastrophe  take  place." 
He  desired  some  expression  of  opinion  that  might  avert  the 
calamity  that  seemed  impending,  by  producing  an  influence  on  the 
public  mind  of  France.  Mr.  Burke  held  such  an  expression  to  be 
useless.  "  The  king  was  in  the  custody  of  assassins,  who  were 
both  his  accusers  and  his  judges,  and  his  destruction  was  inevita- 
ble." Mr.  Fox  asked  whether  some  mode  could  not  be  proposed 
for  obtaining  an  unanimous  vote  of  both  Houses,  conveying  the 


ANXIETY   IN   THE   BRITISH   PARLIAMENT.  559 

unanimous  opinion  of  the  country  ?  Mr.  Pitt  moved  that  there  be 
laid  on  the  table  a  copy  of  the  instructions  of  the  i;th  of  August, 
signifying  to  earl  Gower  that  he  should  quit  Paris.  That  docu- 
ment was  presented  on  the  2ist,  when  Mr.  Pitt  said  that  he  had  at 
first  thought  that  the  best  mode  in  which  the  sense  of  that  House 
could  be  expressed  would  be  by  a  vote,  which  might  reach  the 
whole  of  Europe,  and  whose  influence  might  extend  to  France ; 
but  he  had  since  doubted  whether  a  strong  and  indignant  expres- 
sion of  opinion  might  not  hurry  on  the  commission  of  the  very 
crime  which  it  was  the  intention  of  that  House  to  exert  their  influ- 
ence to  prevent.  He  thought  it  would  be  a  better  mode  simply  to 
allow  the  paper  to  remain  on  the  table  of  the  House.  That  paper, 
our  readers  will  have  seen,  expressed  an  earnest  and  anxious  hope 
that  the  royal  family  would  be  secure  from  any  acts  of  violence.* 
Windham,  Fox,  Sheridan,  and  Burke,  expressed  their  concurrence 
in  the  proposal ;  and  no  one  was  more  hearty  than  Fox  in  "  con- 
demning, from  the  beginning  to  the  end,  the  proceedings  against 
the  unfortunate  king  of  France."  But  this  expression  of  the 
unanimous  feeling  of  the  British  Parliament  evinced  no  determi- 
nation on  the  one  side,  no  apprehension  on  the  other,  that  war 
would  be  inevitable  if  the  dreaded  event  took  place, — "that  dread- 
ful and  final  consummation  which  could  not  fail  to  excite  universal 
horror  and  indignation," — to  use  the  words  in  which  Mr.  Pitt 
expressed  this  general  opinion.  But  horror  and  indignation  at  acts 
affecting  the  domestic  condition  of  another  nation  are  no  reasons 
for  going  to  war.  An  armament  was  proposed ;  but  an  increase  of 
the  navy  did  not  necessarily  imply  war ;  and  Fox  declared  that  he 
was  not  willing  that  we  should  negotiate  unarmed. 

On  the  26th  of  December,  an  Alien  Bill  was  read  a  third  time  in 
the  House  of  Lords.  On  that  occasion  lord  Loughborough,  who, 
in  February,  1792,  was  opposed  to  the  ministry  of  Mr.  Pitt,  as  he 
had  been  systematically  opposed  since  the  defeat  of  the  Coalition, 
expressed  himself  in  those  terms  of  extreme  violence  against  the 
contagion  of  French  principles,  which  assumed  that  domestic  in- 
surrection, supported  by  foreign  aid,  was  an  evil  to  be  averted 
even  by  stronger  measures  than  this  Bill  for  the  regulation  of 
Aliens.  Lord  Loughborough,  in  May,  was  ardently  labouring 
to  promote  an  union  in  administration  between  Pitt  and  Fox,  in 
the  hope  that  through  this  union  he  might  obtain  the  Great  Seal. 
The  negotiation  failed. t  The  intriguing  and  ambitious  lawyer 
was  now  labouring,  with  equal  ardour,  to  reach  the  same  crowning 
glory  of  his  professional  life,  by  inducing  a  large  number  of  the 

*  Ante,  p.  541.  t  Ante,  p.  526. 


560  HISTORY   OF   ENGLAND. 

Whigs,  and  other  remnants  of  the  Coalition  ministry,  to  separate 
from  Fox,  and  support  the  administration  of  Pitt,  assuming  that 
the  minister  would  be  induced  to  depart  from  his  system  of  non- 
intervention in  the  affairs  of  France,  and  at  once  adopt  the  war 
policy  which  Burke  had  advocated  with  such  persevering  vehe- 
mence. That  policy  would  involve  stringent  measures  against  "  the 
disaffected,"  under  which  convenient  term  the  alarmists  compre- 
hended all  those  who  advocated  Parliamentary  Reform,  and  who 
did  not  believe  that  improvement  was  identical  with  revolution. 
The  course  of  lord  Loughborough's  political  manoeuvres  has  been 
made  tolerably  clear  by  the  revelations  of  recent  years.  On  the 
2oth  of  December,  we  find  the  duke  of  Portland,  who  was 
regarded  as  the  head  of  the  Whig  party,  decidedly  against  lord 
Loughborough  taking  the  Great  Seal.*  This  was  a  sufficient  inti- 
mation that  the  time  was  not  yet  ripe  for  Loughborough  carrying 
over  a  large  section  of  the  Opposition  to  the  support  of  the 
Government.  On  the  21  st,  on  the  second  reading  of  the  Alien 
Bill,  the  duke  of  Portland,  although  supporting  that  special 
measure,  evinced  no  intention  of  giving  a  general  support  to  the 
ministry  of  Mr.  Pitt.  On  the  22nd,  it  was  stated  at  a  meeting  of 
that  portion  of  the  Whigs,  who  had  adopted  the  opinions  of  Burke, 
that  the  duke  was  of  opinion  that  it  was  not  yet  time  to  break  with 
Fox ;  but  Loughborough  said  that  such  conduct,  inasmuch  as  they 
were  considered  to  belong  to  the  Portland  party,  involved  all  in  the 
unpopularity  and  disgrace  attending  Fox's  principles.  Burke  said 
that  the  duke  of  Portland  was  the  instrument  of  Fox's  schemes, 
or  rather  of  Fox's  abettors.  Burke  added,  what  was  clearly  a  gross 
injustice  to  his  old  friend,  that  those  abettors  had  made  Fox  be- 
lieve that  a  government  like  ours  was  not  a  proper  one  for  great 
talents  to  display  themselves  in,  and  that  they  had  thus  made  him 
approve  the  French  Revolution. f  On  the  23rd,  Loughborough  and 
his  friends  looked  over  the  Red  Book,  and  found  that  they  could 
reckon  upon  a  hundred  and  seven  members  of  the  House  of 
Commons,  and  upon  forty  Peers,  who  would  concur  in  their  way 
of  thinking,  and  unite  in  a  representation  to  the  duke  of  Port- 
land, which  would  accomplish  the  desired  separation  from  Fox 
and  the  few  Whigs  that  he  continued  to  influence.^  Still  the  duke 
hesitated  to  declare  himself,  "  from  predilection  and  tenderness  to 
Fox."  On  the  27th,  Loughborough  wrote  to  Malmesbury  a  bitter 
letter  of  complaint:  "The  duke  of  Portland  hesitates  whether  he 
shall  withdraw  his  countenance  from  a  party  formed  by  lord  Lans- 

*  Malmesbury — "  Diaries,"  &c.,  vol.  ii.  p.  447. 

t  Ibid.,  vol.  ii.  p.  448.  \  Ibid.,  p.  450. 


THE  WHIG  PARTY  BROKEN  UP.  501 

downe,  Fox,  and  Grey,  under  the  auspices  of  Chauvelin."  *  On 
the  ist  of  January  Loughborough  was  "eager  for  a  further  e"clair- 
cissement  with  the  duke,  and  for  laying  the  whole  before  the 
public."  Malmesbury  urged  him  to  wait  till  after  the  recess.  On 
the  loth,  Loughborough  showed  Malmesbury  a  letter  he  had  re- 
ceived from  Dundas,  pressing  him  to  decide  as  to  taking  the  Great 
Seal,  "  saying  that  he  and  Pitt  had  abstained  renewing  the  subject 
for  some  time  past,  under  the  plea  that  there  were  still  hopes  of 
having  the  duke  of  Portland  ;  that  this  was  now  considered  to  be 
at  an  end."  f  The  astute  politician  was  still  disposed  to  wait  till 
he  could  bring  over  the  duke  of  Portland.  On  the  I4th,  Lough, 
borough  saw  Dundas,  and  told  him  that  if  he  then  took  the  seals, 
he  could  only  expect  that  forty  or  fifty  members  would  join  the 
government,  and  as  many,  now  with  the  government,  would 
probably  go  into  opposition.  On  the  2oth,  Loughborough  had  an 
interview  of  an  hour  and  a  half  with  Pitt ;  and  he  reported  to 
Malmesbury  that  war  was  a  decided  measure ;  that  Pitt  saw  it  was 
inevitable ;  and  that  the  sooner  it  was  begun  the  better,  that  we 
might  possess  ourselves  of  the  French  islands ;  that  the  nation 
was  disposed  for  war ;  that  we  were  in  much  greater  forwardness 
than  the  French ;  that  he  had  two  millions  in  hand.  J  Very 
shortly  after  this  interview  lord  Loughborough  had  secured  the  ad- 
hesion of  the  duke  of  Portland ;  and  the  reward  was  the  Great 
Seal,  which  the  king  delivered  to  him  on  the  28th  of  January.  If 
it  be  necessary  to  seek  any  other  immediate  cause  for  the  war, 
than  the  conviction  of  a  political  necessity  arising  out  of  the  inev- 
itable circumstances  of  the  time,  may  we  not  believe  that  Mr.  Pitt 
ceased  to  struggle  with  his  own  pacific  inclinations,  when  he  saw 
that  a  warlike  policy  would  give  him  a  greater  majority  in  Parlia- 
ment than  any  minister  had  previously  commanded  ?  On  the  I4th 
of  January,  he  had  not  this  assurance  in  the  position  which  lord 
Loughborough  held  with  the  war  party  of  the  Whigs.  On  the  2oth 
of  January,  lord  Loughborough,  in  that  interview  of  an  hour  and  a 
half,  was  no  doubt  secure  of  his  position,  and  came  away  with  the 
news  that  "war  was  a  decided  measure."  That  Lougborough  in- 
fluenced the  decision  can  scarcely  be  doubted.  The  king  had 
forgiven  the  shifty  lawyer's  conduct  on  the  Regency  question,  when 
he  went  further  than  any  man  in  the  advocacy  of  the  absolute 
right  of  the  Prince  of  Wales  to  take  the  regal  authority  without 
restrictions.  Loughborough  had  during  a  little  year  turned  from 

*  Malmesbury,  vol.  ri.  p.  457. 

"  t  Malmesbury,  p.  466.  In  the  history  of  such  transactions,  exact  dates  are  important 
I/ord  Campbell  gives  the  4th  as  the  date  when  Loughborough  showed  this  letter. 

t  Ibid.,  p.  470. 

VOL.  VI.-36 


tfil  BiSTORY   OF    ENGLAND. 

an  admirer  of  the  French  National  Assembly  to  be  the  most  zeal- 
ous of  Anti-Jacobins,  and  had  thus  made  his  peace  at  St.  James's. 
The  vast  majority  which  Pitt  acquired  by  the  accession  of  the 
Whigs  who  seceded  from  Fox  was  supported  by  the  greater  por- 
tion of  the  higher  and  middle  classes,  who  had  an  extravagant 
dread  of  the  possible  progress  of  French  principles,  and  not  a 
sufficient  dread  of  the  certain  evils  of  a  contest  that  would  entail 
the  most  fearful  sacrifices  upon  the  humbler  classes,  and  thus  pro- 
duce rej.1  discontent  in  the  place  of  theoretical  disaffection.  A 
very  short  time  before  this,  the  English  ministers,  although  suffi- 
ciently alive  to  the  danger  of  extreme  democratic  opinions,  saw 
their  best  safety  in  the  improvement  of  the  condition  of  the  mass 
s>f  the  people.  Lord  Grenville,  at  no  more  distant  period  than  the 
7th  of  November,  wrote,  in  fraternal  confidence,  these  remarkable, 
words:  "All  my  ambition  is  that  I  may  at  some  time  hereafter, 
when  I  am  freed  from  all  active  concern  in  such  a  scene  as  this  is, 
have  the  inexpressible  satisfaction  of  being  able  to  look  back  upon 
it,  and  to  tell  myself  that  I  have  contributed  to  keep  my  own 
country  at  least  a  little  longer  from  sharing  in  all  the  evils  of  every 
sort  that  surround  us.  I  am  more  and  more  convinced  that  this 
can  only  be  done  by  keeping  wholly  and  entirely  aloof,  and  by 
watching  much  at  home,  but  doing  very  little  indeed  ;  endeavour- 
ing to  nurse  up  in  the  country  a  real  determination  to  stand  by  the 
Constitution  when  it  is  attacked,  as  it  most  infallibly  will  be  if 
these  things  go  on  ;  and,  above  all,  trying  to  make  the  situation  of 
the  lower  orders  among  us  as  good  as  it  can  be  made."  *  It  must 
have  been  perfectly  clear  to  a  minister  as  sagacious  and  experi- 
enced as  Mr.  Pitt,  that  the  remarkable  prosperity  which  had  been 
built  up  during  a  peace  of  ten  years  would  receive  a  severe  shock 
from  the  cost  of  war, — that  "  the  situation  of  the  lower  orders  >: 
would  be  materially  deteriorated  by  the  pressure  of  taxation  and 
the  interruption  of  industry.  But  Mr.  Pitt  thought  that  the  con- 
test would  be  soon  decided ;  that  revolutionary  France  would 
quickly  exhaust  her  resources  for  war ;  that  the  opinions  of  the 
Revolution  were  only  dangerous  when  they  were  "armed  opinions." 
In  the  retrospect  of  the  origin  of  the  war  which  he  took  in  1800, 
when  he  maintained  that  he  had  laboured  to  the  last  "  to  preserve 
peace  on  any  terms  consistent  with  our  safety,"  he  confessed  that 
the  government  had  been  too  slow  in  anti  :ipating  the  danger  which 
was  to  be  apprehended  from  France  :  "  We  might  even  then  have 
6een,  what  facts  have  since  but  too  vncc  ntestably  proved,  that 
nothing  but  vigorous  and  open  hostility  van  afford  complete  and 

*  "  Court,  &c.,  of  George  III."  vcl.  ;i.,  t    224. 


THE   STATE   OF   PUBLIC   OPINION   IN   ENGLAND.  563 

adequate  security  against  revolutionary  principles,  while  they 
retain  a  proportion  of  power  sufficient  to  furnish  the  means  of 
war."  It  was  revolutionary  principles  in  arms  for  conquest  and 
rapine  that  statesmen  dreaded.  The  terror  of  domestic  revolution, 
through  the  contagion  of  revolutionary  principles  extending  beyond 
a  small  band  of  obscure  republican  enthusiasts,  was  a  nightmare 
that  only  disturbed  the  sleep  of  alarmists — the  "  thoroughly  fright- 
ened," who  talked  as  familiarly  of  "  Fire,  Famine,  and  Slaughter," 
"as  maids  of  thirteen  do  of  puppy-dogs."  These  mistook  "the 
meetings  and  idle  rant  of  such  sedition  as  shrank  appalled  from 
the  sight  of  a  constable,  for  the  dire  murmuring  and  strange  con- 
sternation which  precedes  the  storm  or  earthquake  of  national  dis- 
cord  The  panic  of  property  had  been  struck  in  the  first 

instance  for  party  purposes ;  and  when  it  became  general,  its  prop- 
agators caught  it  themselves,  and  ended  in  believing  their  own 
lie — even  as  the  bulls  in  Borodale  are  said  sometimes  to  run  mad 
with  the  echo  of  their  own  bellowing."  * 

The  state  of  public  opinion  in  England,  at  the  period  immedi- 
ately preceding  the  commencement  of  the  war,  may  be  traced  in 
the  proceedings  of  "  Associations  in  support  of  the  Constitution," 
and  in  counter  resolutions  of  Societies  such  as  those  which  Burke 
denounced  in  1790.  These  Clubs,  really  insignificant  in  them- 
selves, were  raised  into  importance  by  the  exaggerated  alarm  of 
the  "  friends  of  established  law  and  peaceable  society,"  and  the 
inopportune  enthusiasm  of  the  advocates  of  parliamentary  reform. 
At  a  meeting  of. "  Gentlemen  at  the  Crown  and  Anchor  in  the 
Strand,  November  20,  1792,  John  Reeves,  Esq.,  in  the  chair,"  the 
danger  was  set  forth  "  to  which  the  public  peace  and  order  are  ex- 
posed by  the  circulation  of  mischievous  opinions,  founded  upon 
plausible  but  false  reasoning."  This  circulation  of  dangerous 
doctrines  was  alleged  to  be  mainly  carried  on  by  the  industry  of 
Clubs  and  Societies  ;  and  these  opinions  were  held  to  be  conveyed 
in  the  terms,  "  The  Rights  of  Man— Liberty  and  Equality— No 
King — No  Parliament."  On  the  29th  of  November  "  The  London 
Corresponding  Society  "  published  an  Address,  denouncing  "  the 
artifices  of  a  late  aristocratic  association ;  "  declaring  that  "  who- 
ever shall  attribute  to  us  the  expressions  of  No  King — No  Parlia- 
ment, or  any  design  of  invading  the  property  of  other  men,  is 
guilty  of  a  wilful,  an  impudent,  and  a  malicious  falsehood  ; "  but 
adding,  "  we  admit  and  we  declare  that  we  are  friends  to  Civil 
Liberty,  and  therefore  to  Natural  Equality,  both  of  which  we  con- 
sider as  the  Rights  of  Man."  "The  Society  for  Constitutional 

*  Coleridge—"  Friend,"  Essay  I. 


564  HISTORY   OF    ENGLAND. 

Information,"  on  the  I4th  of  December,  resolved,  that  it  disclaimed 
the  idea  of  making  any  change  by  violence  and  public  commotion  ; 
"  but  that  it  trusts  to  the  good  sense  of  the  people,  when  they  shall 
be  fully  enlightened  on  the  subject,  to  procure,  without  disturbing 
the  public  tranquillity,  an  effectual  and  permanent  reform."  "  The 
Society  of  the  Friends  of  the  People,"  at  a  meeting  on  the  I5th  of 
December,  at  which  Samuel  Whitbread  took  the  chair,  held  them- 
selves bound  to  persevere  in  their  endeavours  to  accomplish, 
through  the  known  channels  of  the  Constitution,  an  effectual  re- 
form in  the  construction  of  the  House  of  Commons ;  but  remon- 
strating  against  the  endeavours  "  to  confound  the  idea  of  a  reform 
in  parliament  with  that  of  disaffection  to  the  established  constitu- 
tion of  this  kingdom,  as  if  a  real  representation  of  the  Commons 
were  incompatible  with  the  security  of  a  limited  monarchy ;  as  if 
the  Crown  were  not  safe  with  an  honest  unbiassed  House  of  Com- 
mons ;  or  as  if  the  idea  of  such  reform  had  been  at  all  times  repro- 
bated, as  it  now  is,  by  those  who  occupy  the  highest  station  of 
profit  and  confidence  under  the  Crown."  *  At  this  period  of 
political  heat  the  trial  of  Thomas  Paine,  upon  a  prosecution  for 
libel  in  publishing  "The  Rights  of  Man,"  took  place  on  the  i8th 
of  December.  "  No  one,"  says  lord  Campbell,  "  could  justly  com- 
plain of  it  as  an  infringement  of  public  liberty."  The  eloquent 
defence  of  Erskine  did  not  influence  the  decision  of  the  jury,  who 
returned  a  verdict  of  Guilty,  even  without  waiting  for  the  Attor- 
ney-General to  reply.  This  great  advocate  maintained  as  the  basis 
of  the  liberty  of  the  press,  "  that  every  man  not  intending  to  mis- 
lead, but  seeking  to  enlighten  others  with  what  his  own  reason 
and  conscience,  however  erroneously,  have  dictated  to  him  as  a 
truth,  may  address  himself  to  the  universal  reason  of  a  whole 
nation,  either  upon  the  subject  of  government  in  general  or  upon 
that  of  our  own  particular  country."  But  the  argument  was  too 
broad  for  those  excited  times.  The  clamour  against  the  repub- 
lican had  already  condemned  his  book,  in  some  respects  very 
justly. 

At  the  time  of  this  trial  Paine  was  a  member  of  the  National 
Convention  of  France ;  and  he  took  occasion  to  write  an  insolent 
letter  to  the  Attorney-General,  in  which  he  says,  "  The  duty  I  am 
now  engaged  in  is  of  too  much  importance  to  permit  :nc  to  trouble 

myself  about  your  prosecution The  time,  sir,  is  becoming 

too  serious  to  play  with  court  prosecutions  and  sport  with  national 
rights.  The  terrible  examples  that  have  taken  place  here  upon 
men  who,  less  than  ~  year  ago,  thought  themselves  as  secure  as 

*  For  these  various  Resolutions,  &c.,  see  :'  Annual  Register,"  1793,  pp.  *i$5  '°  *tjo. 


TRIAL   OF   THOMAS   PAINE,    FOR   LIBEL.  565 

any  prosecuting  judge,  jury,  or  Attorney-General  can  now  do  in 
England,  ought  to  have  some  weight  with  men  in  j  our  situation." 
The  Attorney-General  read  this  letter  to  prove  the  authorship  of 
the  "  Rights  of  Man,"  therein  avowed  by  Paine  ;  but  it  was  quite 
clear  that  language  such  as  this  would  ensure  the  conviction  of 
this  furious  democrat,  who  thus  threatened  with  the  perils  of  the 
lamp-post  and  the  guillotine  those  who  were  discharging  their  con- 
stitutional functions.  Still  less  would  a  jury  bear  the  scurrilous 
allusions  to  "  Mr.  Guelph  and  his  profligate  sons."  The  king  was 
at  this  time  almost  universally  popular.  The  mistakes  of  the  early 
years  of  his  reign,  when  he  sought  to  govern  by  secret  infli  ence 
and  favouritism,  had  been  forgotten.  The  odium  attached  to  his 
pertinacity  in  the  American  war  had  been  chiefly  confined  to 
statesmen,  who  addressed  themselves  to  the  reason  and  justice  of 
the  few  rather  than  to  the  passions  of  the  many.  The  coalition 
had  been  distasteful  to  the  people  ;  and  the  young  minister  chosen 
by  the  king  had  fully  vindicated  the  choice.  The  example  of  the 
court  had  produced  a  considerable  reformation  in  the  manners  of 
the  higher  classes ;  open  profligacy  was  a  bar  to  royal  favour. 
The  simple  tastes  of  the  king ;  his  domestic  piety  and  decorum  ; 
his  habitual  attention  to  the  best  pursuits  of  a  country  gentleman 
in  his  love  of  agriculture  ;  his  unrestrained  intercourse  with  his 
subjects  on  public  occasions  ;  even  his  garrulity  and  familiar  curi- 
osity, made  him  really  an  object  of  affectionate  attachment  to  the 
great  bulk  of  the  people.  They  did  not  believe  him  to  be  a  great 
king,  but  they  knew  him  to  be  a  good  king,  as  far  as  they  could 
judge  of  royal  attributes.  His  narrow  views  upon  large  political 
questions,  such  as  that  of  the  admission  ot  Roman  Catholics  to 
civil  offices,  were  a  recommendation  to  the  majority.  They  prob- 
ably had  no  very  exalted  opinion  of  his  understanding ;  which, 
however,  was  far  more  acute  than  it  has  been  the  fashion  to  regard 
it  in  very  recent  years.  They  laughed  at  the  ribaldry  of  Peter 
Pindar;  but  they  were  not  convinced  by  it  that  their  king  was  a 
simpleton — because  he  was  exhibited  at  Whitbred's  brewery 
exclaiming,  "  What's  this  ?  hae,  hae !  what's  that  ?  what  this  ?  what's 
that  ?  "  or,  as  hunting  with  "  Parson  Young,"  and  when  a  fatal 
accident  occurred  to  his  reverend  friend,  ejaculating,  "  What, 
what  ?  Young  dead  ?  Take  him  up,  and  put  him  home  to  bed  ; " 
or  learning  from  the  widow  of  Salthill  the  way  to  catch  a  mouse  in 
a  trap  baited  with  toasted  cheese  ;  or  taking  shelter  in  a  farm- 
kitchen,  and  making  the  discovery  how  the  apple  got  into  the 
dumpling.  These  were  not  the  things  to  abate  one  jot  of  the 
king's  popularity — perhaps  they  increased  it.  The  sneer  of  Pain* 


566  HISTORY   OF   ENGLAND. 

at  the  "  capacity  of  Mr.  Guelph  "  fell  harmless.  The  king  had 
courage  and  common  sense — qualities  perhaps  more  important  to 
a  constitutional  sovereign  than  great  intellectual  refinement.  The 
nation  clung  to  him  as  representing  the  principles  most  antagon- 
istic to  French  philosophy. 

The  Alien  Bill,  which  had  been  read  a  third  time  in  the  House 
of  Lords,  was  read  a  second  time  in  the  House  of  Commons  on 
the  28th  of  December.  On  that  occasion,  Burke  "  mentioned  the 
circumstance  of  three  thousand  daggers  having  been  bespoke  at 
Birmingham  by  an  Englishman,  of  which  seventy  had  been  de- 
livered. It  was  not  ascertained  how  many  of  these  were  to  be 
exported,  and  how  many  were  intended  for  home  consumption." 
The  Parliamentary  History  then  adds,  "here  Mr.  Burke  drew  out 
a  dagger  which  he  had  kept  concealed,  and  with  much  vehemence 
of  action  threw  it  on  the  floor."  The  orator,  pointing  to  the 
dagger,  said,  "  This  is  what  you  are  to  gain  with  an  alliance  with 
France  ;  wherever  their  principles  are  introduced  their  practice 
must  follow."  *  The  Alien  Bill,  after  much  debate,  was  passed 
on  the  4th  of  January.  On  the  7th  of  that  month,  M.  Chauvelin, 
styling  himself  "minister  plenipotentiary  from  the  French  Republic," 
addressed  a  Note  to  lord  Grenville,  remonstrating  against  this 
Bill  as  a  violation  of  the  Treaty  of  Commerce,  by  which  the  sub- 
jects of  the  two  nations  had  liberty  to  come  and  go  freely  and 
securely  without  license  or  passport.  He  says,  "  It  is  thus  that 
the  British  government  has  first  chosen  to  break  a  treaty  to  which 
England  owes  a  great  part  of  its  actual  prosperity,  burthensome  to 
France."  Lord  Grenville  returned  the  Note,  stating  that  M. 
Chauvelin  had  therein  assumed  a  character  which  is  not  acknowl- 
edged ;  he  being  in  "  no  otherwise  accredited  to  the  king  than  in 
the  name  of  his  most  Christian  Majesty."  In  a  letter  of  the  pth 
of  January,  lord  Grenville  stated,  as  he  had  stated  in  a  private 
conversation  of  the  2pth  of  November,  that  "  he  would  not  decline 
receiving  non-official  communications,  which,  without  deciding  the 
question  either  of  the  acknowledgment  of  the  new  government  in 
France,  or  of  receiving  a  minister  accredited  by  her,  might  offer 
the  means  of  removing  the  misunderstanding  which  already  mani- 
fested itself  between  the  two  countries."  On  the  I3th  M.  Chauve- 
lin informed  lord  Grenville  that  the  Executive  Council,  "  to  discard 
every  reproach  of  having  stopped,  by  the  mere  want  of  formality, 
a  negotiation  on  the  success  of  which  the  tranquillity  of  two  great 
nations  is  depending,  have  taken  the  resolution  of  sending  letters 
of  credence  to  citizen  Chauvelin,  which  would  furnish  him  the 

*  "  Parliamentary  History,"  vol.  xxx.  col,  189.     See  Note  to  this  Chapter 


TRIAL   OF   THE   KING  OF    FRANCE.  567 

means  of  treating  in  all  the  severity  of  diplomatic  forms.  He  then 
enters  into  the  vajrious  points  of  difference,  and  thus  concludes  : 
"  If  the  explanations  of  France  appear  insufficient,  and  if  we  are 
still  obliged  to  hear  a  haughty  language  ;  if  hostile  preparations 
are  continued  in  the  English  ports ;  after  having  exhausted  every 
means  to  preserve  peace,  we  will  prepare  for  war."  Lord  Gren- 
ville,  still  protesting  against  the  unofficial  form  of  the  notifications, 
answers  that  "  a  threat  of  declaring  war  against  England,  because 
she  thinks  proper  to  augment  her  forces,'as  well  as  a  declaration 
of  breaking  a  solemn  treaty,  because  England  has  adopted,  for  her 
own  security,  precautions  of  the  same  nature  as  those  which  are 
already  established  in  France,*  could  neither  of  them  be  considered 
in  any  other  light  than  that  of  new  offences,  which,  while  they  sub- 
sisted, would  preclude  all  negotiations."  On  the  I7th  of  January, 
M.  Chauvelin  required  to  be  informed  whether  his  Britannic 
majesty  would  receive  his  letters  of  credence  ;  and  on  the  2oth 
lord  Grenville  replied,  "  I  am  to  inform  you,  that  his  majesty  does 
not  think  fit,  under  the  present  circumstances,  to  receive  those 
letters ; "  and  he  added  that,  "  after  what  has  just  passed  in 
France,"  M.  Chauvelin  must  return,  as  a  private  person,  to  the 
general  mass  of  foreigners  in  England.  On  the  i/th  of  January 
a  majority  of  the  National  Convention  had  pronounced  for  the 
death  of  the  king  of  France.  "  What  had  just  passed  "  in  France 
was  followed  up  on  the  2ist  by  the  execution  of  Louis  ;  and  on  the 
24th  M.  Chauvelin  was  ordered,  by  direction  of  the  king  in  coun- 
cil, to  retire  from  this  country  within  eight  days. 

We  have  to  take  up  the  thread  of  a  painful  narrative,  from  the 
time  when  the  king  went  back  to  the  Temple,  after  having  ap- 
peared at  the  bar  of  the  Convention  on  the  nth  of  December. 
He  named  two  persons  as  his  counsel — Target,  and  Tronchet. 
Target  had  a  cowardly  dread  of  accepting  the  offer,  and  his  place 
was  taken  by  the  venerable  Malesherbes,  who  volunteered  his 
services  to  the  President  of  the  Convention,  saying,  that  he  had 
been  twice  called  to  the  councils  of  Louis,  when  to  serve  him 
was  an  object  of  ambition ;  and  that  he  owed  him  the  same  ser- 
vice when  it  might  be  considered  dangerous.  With  Malesherbes 
and  Tronchet,  Deseze  was  associated.  There  was  no  impediment 
offered  to  their  free  consultations  with  the  king ;  and  a  fortnight 
was  spent  in  preparations  for  the  defence.  On  the  26th  of  De- 
cember, the  king  again  appeared  at  the  bar  of  the  Convention. 
Deseze  conducted  the  defence.  His  arguments  were  logical,  but 

*  The  system  of  passports,  introduced  during  the  Revolution,  was  rigidly  applied  to 
British  subjects,  in  contravention  of  the  treaty  of  comrrcrca. 


5~iS  HISTORY   OF   ENGLAND. 

he  was  unequal  to  the  task  of  moving  an  assembly  that  was 
swayed  more  by  passion  and  sentiment  than  by 'reason.  He  said, 
*'  History  will  sit  in  judgment  on  your  judgment,  and  the  judgment 
of  history  will  be  the  judgment  of  ages."  His  Will,  which  the 
suffering  king  made  before  this  conclusion  of  a  pretended  trial 
the  issue  of  which  was  pre-determined,  is  sufficient  to  fix  the 
judgment  of  History  as  to  the  personal  character  of  this  kind- 
hearted  king.  In  this  solemn  document,  written  on  the  25th  of 
December,  he  says,  "  I  recommend  my  son,  if  he  has  the  mis- 
fortune to  become  king,  to  remember  that  he  owes  himself  to 
the  happiness  of  his  fellow-citizens  ;  to  forget  all  hatred  and 
resentment,  and  especially  that  which  relates  to  the  misfortunes 
and  sorrows  I  now  undergo."  It  was  with  perfect  consistency 
that  Louis  declared,  in  the  few  words  that  he  addressed  to  the 
Convention  after  his  counsel  had  spoken,  that  his  greatest  grief 
was  that  he  should  have  been  accused  of  wishing  to  shed  the 
blood  of  his  people — "  I,  who  have  exposed  myself  in  order  to 
avert  the  shedding  of  one  drop  of  their  blood."  For  many 
days  there  were  stormy  discussions  in  the  Convention,  on  prop- 
ositions made  by  those  who  were  afraid  to  declare  Louis  not 
guilty,  but  who  wished  to  save  him  without  compromising  them- 
selves. One  proposed  that  the  Convention  should  decide  on  the 
guilt  of  Louis,  but  refer  to  the  primary  assemblies  the  question  of 
his  death  or  his  exile.  The  principal  Girondins,  speaking  through 
their  great  orator,  Vergniaud,  proposed  that  the  judgment  which 
should  be  pronounced  upon  Louis,  whether  that  of  Guilty  or  Not 
Guilty,  should  be  submitted  to  the  ratification  of  the  people.  It 
was  at  length  decided  that  three  questions  should  be  determined 
by  the  vote  at  the  tribune  of  each  member,  on  the  appel  nominal, 
— the  call  by  name.  Upon  the  first  question,  put  on  the  I5th  of 
January,  "  Is  Louis  Capet  guilty  of  conspiracy  against  the  liberty 
of  the  nation,  and  of  attempts  against  the  general  security  of  the 
state,"  six  hundred  and  eighty-three  members  replied,  "Yes,  Louis 
is  guilty."  On  the  second  question,  "  Shall  the  decision  of  the 
Convention  be  submitted  to  the  ratification  of  the  people,"  two 
hundred  and  eighty-one  voted  for  the  appeal  ;  four  hundred  and 
twenty-three  against  it.  The  third  question,  "  What  shall  be  the 
sentence,"  was  to  be  decided  on  the  morrow.  The  Convention 
during  the  whole  of  that  day  had  been  occupied  with  various  pre- 
liminary discussions,  especially  upon  a  proposition  that  two-thirds 
of  the  votes  should  be  necessary  to  constitute  a  majority.  This 
proposition  was  rejected.  It  was  eight  o'clock  in  the  evening 
before  the  voting  commenced.  The  fearful  ceremony  which  every 


EXECUTION    OF    THE    KING.  569 

member  had  to  go  through  in  the  presence  of  a  blood-thirsty 
audience  in  the  galleries,  and  a  furious  mob  without  doors,  was 
continued  through  the  night,  and  was  renewed  the  next  day.  The 
greater  number  of  the  Girondins,  including  Vergniaud,  joined  the 
Mountain,  in  voting  for  the  sentence  of  Death.  The  one  Prince 
of  the  blood,  who  had  laid  down  his  title  to  become  a  member  of 
the  Convention,  voted  for  Death.*  The  one  Englishman  who  had 
been  elected  a  deputy,  Thomas  Paine,  voted  for  imprisonment,  and 
banishment  at  the  peace.  It  was  late  at  night  before  the  votes 
were  counted.  Three  hundred  and  eighty-seven  were  for  death 
without  any  condition  ;  three  hundred  and  thirty-four  were  for 
imprisonment  on  conditional  death.  Vergniaud,  as  President,  de- 
clared the  sentence.  On  the  igth  the  question  was  put,  "  Shall 
the  execution  of  the  sentence  of  Louis  Capet  be  deferred  ?  "  For 
the  suspension  of  the  sentence  there  were  three  hundred  and  ten 
members  ;  for  its  immediate  execution  there  were  three  hundred 
and  eighty.  On  the  aoth  of  January,  the  decision  of  the  Conven- 
tion was  officially  communicated  to  Louis.  He  requested  *a  delay 
of  three  days  to  prepare  himself  to  appear  before  his  Maker  ;  he 
requested  that  he  should  have  a  priest,  whose  name  he  wrote  down ; 
he  requested  to  see  his  family  without  witnesses,  and  that  they 
might  be  allowed  to  leave  France.  The  Convention  refused  the 
respite.  They  granted  the  priest,  and  the  permission  to  see  his 
family,  which  permission  the  brutal  Commune  refused  to  have 
carried  out,  causing  them  to  be  watched  through  a  glass-door. 
They  "  authorized  the  Executive  Council  to  reply  to  Louis,  that  the 
nation,  always  magnanimous  and  always  just,  would  consider  the 
situation  of  his  family."  We  spare  our  readers  the  heart-rending 
details  of  the  parting  of  the  king  with  his  wife,  his  son  and  daughter, 
and  his  sister.  The  priest  that  Louis  had  chosen  was  the  Abbe' 
Edge  worth.  He  attended  the  king  to  the  scaffold  ;  and  as  the 
ftnife  of  the  guillotine  was  about  to  fall,  exclaimed,  "  Son  of  St. 

*  There  are  some  interesting  details  of  this  crowning  infamy  of  Egalite",  in  the  Journal 
of  her  Life  during  the  Revolution,  by  Mrs.  Elliott,  who  had  the  misfortune  of  being  the 
mistress  of  two  of  the  most  profligate"  men  of  Europe,  the  prince  of  Wales  and  the  duke 
of  Orleans.  When  this  lady  urged  the  duke  to  vote  for  the  deliverance  of  his  cousin,  the 
king,  he  said  sneeringly,  "  Certainly,  and  for  my  own  death."  He  subsequently  said, 
"  he  thought  the  king  had  been  guilty  by  forfeiting  his  word  to  the  nation,  yet  nothing 
should  induce  him  to  vote  against  him  "  on  the  final  question  of  his  sentence.  After  the 
execution  of  Louis,  Mrs  Elliott  said  to  the  duke,  "  You,  monseigneur,  will  die,  like  the 
poor  king,  on  the  scaffold."  The  duke  replied,  "  The  king  has  been  tried,  and  he  is  no 
more.  I  could  not  prevent  his  death.  ....  I  could  not  avoid  doing  what  I  have 
done.  I  am,  perhaps,  more  to  be  pitied  than  you  can  form  ->n  idea  of.  I  am  more  a  shve 
of  faction  than  anybody  in  France.  But  from  this  instant/ let  us  drop  the  subject."— pp. 
117-118-1*7. 


57°  HISTORY   OF    ENGLAND. 

Louis,  ascend  to  heaven."  This  tragedy  was  completed  at  ten 
o'clock  of  the  morning  of  the  2ist  of  January. 

On  the  28th  of  January  a  message  was  delivered  to  parliament, 
in  which  the  king  stated  the  indispensable  necessity  of  a  further 
augmentation  of  force  by  sea  and  land,  the  correspondence  between 
lord  Grenville  and  M.  Chauvelin  having  been  at  the  same  time 
presented.  Mr.  Pitt  moved  an  Address  of  thanks,  of.  which  the 
following  passages  appear  to  have  shut  the  door  to  any  further 
negotiation  with  the  existing  government  of  France  : — 

"  To  offer  to  his  Majesty  our  heartfelt  condolence  on  the  atro- 
cious act  lately  perpetrated  at  Paris,  which  must  be  viewed  by  every 
nation  in  Europe  as  an  outrage  on  religion,  justice,  and  humanity  ; 
and  as  a  striking  and  dreadful  example  of  the  effect  of  principles 
which  lead  to  the  violation  of  the  most  sacred  duties,  and  are 
utterly  subversive  of  the  peace  and  order  of  all  civil  society. 

"  To  assure  his  Majesty,  that  it  is  impossible  for  us  not  to  be 
sensible  of  the  views  of  aggrandizement  and  ambition,  which,  in 
violation  of  repeated  and  solemn  professions,  have  been  openly 
manifested  on  the  part  of  France,  and  which  are  connected  with 
the  propagation  of  principles  incompatible  with  the  existence  of 
all  just  and  regular  government  :  that,  under  the  present  circum- 
tances,  we  consider  a  vigorous  and  effectual  opposition  to  these 
views  as  essential  to  the  security  of  everything  which  is  most  dear 
and  valuable  to  us  as  a  nation,  and  to  the  future  tranquillity  and 
safety  of  all  other  countries  !  " 


NOTE  ON   THE  DAGGER-SCENE.  571 


NOTE  ON  THE  DAGGER-SCENE  IN  THE  HOUSE  OF 
COMMONS. 


Lord  Eldon,  then  Sir  John  Scott,  in  a  letter  to  his  brother  of  the  ijth  January,  says, 
"  You  would  hear  of  the  dagger  which  Burke  exhibited  in  the  House  of  Commons.  I 
have  got  the  pattern  specimen  of  that  order,  which  I  shall  keep  as  a  great  curiosity."  In  a 
note  to  Twiss's  Life  of  Lord  Eldon,  the  inheritor  of  his  title  says,  "  On  Lord  Chancellor 
Eldou's  death  I  found  with  his  papers  the  dagger  which,  from  conversations  with  him  in 
the  latter  years  of  his  life,  I  had  understood  to  be  the  one  thrown  down  by  Burke  in  the 
House  of  Commons."  But  it  appears  that  there  were  two  specimens  of  this  Birmingham 
manufacture,  one  of  which  was  in  the  possession  of  Sir  Charles  Montolieu  Lamb,  the  son 
of  Sir  James  Bland  Burgess,  who  was  at  that  period  Under-Secretary  of  State  for  the 
Foreign  Department.  The  dagger-scene  was  the  subject  of  a  famous  caricature  by  Gill- 
ray  ;  and  so  characteristic  a  likeness  of  Burke  was  never  produced  as  in  this  sketch. 

This  dagger-scene  was  in  some  respects  a  matter-of-fact  affair — elevated  into  an  ap- 
proach to  sublimity  by  the  imagination  of  the  orator,  and,  like  many  other  sublime  actions, 
treading  close  upon  the  ridiculous.  It  certainly,  upon  the  face  of  the  thing,  does  appear 
a  proper  subject  for  caricature,  when  the  man  upon  whom  the  eyes  of  all  Europe  were 
fixed — who  at  that  moment  exercised  more  influence  over  public  opinion  than  any  speaker 
or  writer  who  ever  existed,— a  grave  man  well-stricken  in  years,— should  draw  out  a  dag- 
ger from  his  pocket,  and  cast  it  upon  the  floor  of  the  House  of  Commons.  The  occur- 
rence has  been  called  "  a  stroke  of  oratorical  acting  ;  "  but  it  appears,  from  the  circum- 
stantial account  by  Sir  Charles  Lamb,  that  Burke's  possession  of  the  dagger  was  an  acci- 
dental occurrence,  and  that  the  "  acting  "  was  at  any  rate  unpremeditated.  This  dagger, 
"  a  foot  long  in  the  blade,  and  about  five  inches  \n  the  handle,  of  coarse  workmanship, 
and  might  serve  either  as  a  dagger  or  a  pike-head,"  according  to  Sir  Charles  Lamb, 
"  was  sent  to  a  manufacturer  at  Birmingham,  as  a  pattern,  with  an  order  to  make  a  large 
quantity  like  it.  At  that  time  the  order  seemed  so  suspicious,  that,  instead  of  executing 
it,  he  came  to  London  and  called  on  my  father  at  the  Secretary  of  State's  office,  to  inform 
him  of  it,  and  ask  him  his  advice;  and  he  left  the  pattern  with  him.  Just  after,  Mr. 
Burke  called,  on  his  way  to  the  House  of  Commons  ;  and  upon  my  father  mentioning  the 
thing  to  him,  borrowed  the  dagger,  to  show  in  the  House.  They  walked  down  to  the 
House  together ;  and  when  Mr.  Burke  had  made  his  speech,  my  father  took  the  dagger 
again,  and  kept  it  as  a  curiosity." 


57*  HISTORY   OF   ENGLAND. 


CHAPTER  XXX. 

Retrospect  of  Indian  Affairs  from  1785. — Lord  Cornwallis  Governor-General. — Declar- 
atory Bill. — War  with  Tippoo. — Retreat  of  Cornwallis  in  1790. — Capture  of  Serin- 
gapatam  in  1791. — Peace  with  Tippoo. — The  French  West  India  Islands. — Retro- 
spect of  Discoveries  in  the  Pacific. — Otaheite. — New  Zealand. — New  South  Wales. — 
Canada. — Military  and  Naval  Establishments  of  Great  Britain. — France  declares 
War. 

IT  is  desirable  at  this  point,  when  our  country  was  about  to 
enter  upon  a  war  which  developed  events  of  unexampled  interest,  to 
take  a  brief  view  of  some  circumstances  which  may  explain  her 
position,  without  interruption  to  the  progress  of  the  general  narra- 
tive of  her  history. 

Let  us  first  take  up  the  thread  of  Indian  affairs  at  the  point 
at  which  we  left  them  at  the  close  of  the  administration  of  Has- 
tings in  1785. 

The  India  bill  of  Mr.  Pitt,  while  it  gave  the  Governor-General 
of  Calcutta  supreme  authority  over  the  other  two  Presidencies,  re- 
stricted him  from  commencing  hostilities  against  any  native  prince, 
or  from  taking  certain  proceedings  likely  to  lead  to  hostilities, 
without  the  express  permission  of  the  Court  of  Directors.  In  1786 
lord  Cornwallis  was  appointed  Governor-General ;  and  he  having 
objected  that  the  limited  powers  of  that  officer  prevented  his  effi- 
ciency, a  measure  was  carried  which  gave  greater  authority  to  the 
Governor-General  to  act,  in  cases  of  emergency,  without  the  con- 
currence of  the  Supreme  Council  of  Calcutta.  For  the  first  year 
and  a-half  of  lord  Cornwallis's  administration,  he  was  enabled  to 
give  his  uninterrupted  attention  to  administrative  improvements 
in  matters  of  finance  especially.  At  the  end  of  1787,  his  tranquil- 
lity was  somewhat  disturbed.  He  writes,  "  The  great  warlike  pre- 
parations of  Tippoo,  and  the  reports  transmitted  me  by  sir  Arch. 
Campbell  that  he  meditated  an  attack  upon  me,  and  that  he  would 
be  assisted  by  the  French,  made  me  tremble  for  my  plans  of 
economy  and  reform.  The  storm  is,  however,  blown  over."  *  At 
this  period  the  Governor-General  was  not  very  well  prepared  for 
warlike  operations.  The  appearance  of  the  native  troops,  he  said, 
gave  him  the  greatest  satisfaction  ;  but  "  (he  Company's  European 
*  Cornwallis's  "Correspondence,"  vol.  i.  p.  316. 


LORD   CORNWALLIS  GOVERNOR-GENERAL.  573 

troops  are  such  miserable  wretches  that  I  am  ashamed  to  acknowl- 
edge them  for  countrymen:  out  of  the  six  battalions  I  do  not 
think  that  I  could  complete  one  that  would  be  fit  for  service."  In 
the  temporary  apprehension  of  a  war  with  France  in  1 787,  the 
British  government  desired  to  send  four  regiments  to  India  in  the 
Company's  ships.  The  alarm  soon  came  to  an  end ;  but  the  gov- 
ernment at  home  did  not  think  it  safe  to  leave  the  defence  of  India 
solely  to  sepoys  and  to  the  Company's  inefficient  European  troops. 
The  Board  of  Control  resolved,  therefore,  to  send  out  four  regi- 
ments at  the  charge  of  the  Company  for  transport  and  maintenance ; 
and  the  Company  as  stoutly  refused  to  bear  the  charge.  Mr.  Pitt, 
on  the  25th  of  February,  1 788,  brought  in  a  Bill  "  for  removing 
any  doubt  respecting  the  power  of  the  commissioners  for  the  affairs 
of  India,  to  direct  that  the  expense  of  raising,  transporting,  and 
maintaining  such  troops  as  may  be  judged  necessary  for  the  secu- 
rity of  the  British  territories  and  possessions  of  the  East  Indies, 
should  be  defrayed  out  of  the  revenues  arising  from  the  said  terri- 
tories and  possessions."  This  proposition  gave  rise  to  animated 
debates  in  both  Houses.  It  was  contended  that  there  would  be 
an  end  to  the  East  India  Company  and  all  their  property  if  such  a 
Bill  were  passed.  Mr.  Fox  declared  that  the  Declaratory  Bill 
was  "  an  insidious  attempt  to  assume  the  same  powers  that  his  Bill 
would  have  given  to  his  Board  of  Commissioners,  but  in  a  manner 
less  open  and  much  more  dangerous  to  the  Constitution."  The 
real  bearing  of  the  question  was  expressed  in  a  pleasantry  of  sir 
James  Johnstone  :  "  The  present  dispute  was  a  matrimonial  quarrel 
between  lord  Control  and  lady  Leadenhall.  He  considered  him- 
self as  a  justice  of  peace  before  whom  the  parties  had  come  to 
make  up  their  differences  :  he  was  always  disposed  to  side  against 
power,  and  should  give  in  favour  of  the  lady.  He  saw  no  reason 
why  lord  Control  should  be  allowed  to  rob  lady  Leadenhall  of  her 
pin-money."  *  The  Bill  was  passed. 

At  the  beginning  of  February,  1790,  earl  Cornwallis  wrote  to 
his  brother,  the  bishop  of  Lichfield  and  Coventry, — "  The  unpro- 
voked attack  which  Tippoo  has  made  upon  our  ally  the  Rajah  of 
Travancore  has,  much  against  my  inclination,  forced  us  into  a  war. 

It  is  a  melancholy  task  to  write   this,  and  to  see  all  the 

effects  of  my  economy,  and  the  regulation  of  the  finances  which 
cost  me  so  much  labour,  destroyed  in  a  few  months."  f  On  the 
29th  of  December,  1789,  Tippoo  had  stormed  the  lines  of  our  ally. 
No  one  of  the  native  princes  was  so  formidable  as  Tippoo.  His 

*  "  Parliamentary  History,"  vol.  xxvii.  col.  109. 
t  "  Correspondence,"  vol.  i.  p.  494- 


574  HISTORY   OF   ENGLAND. 

dominions  of  Mysore  were  very  extensive,  and  were  fully  populated 
by  Hindoos  and  Mohammedans.  Many  places  were  strongly  forti- 
fied. His  cavalry  were  those  that  had  swept  the  Carnatic  in  1780, 
as  "  a  whirlwind ; "  his  artillery  was  formidable,  consisting  of 
heavy  ordnance  drawn  by  elephants.  To  assist  in  carrying  on  the 
contest  against  this  unscrupulous  despot,  Cornwallis  concluded 
alliances  with  the  Peishwa  of  the  Mahrattas,  and  the  Nizam  of 
the  Deccan.  General  Meadows  commanded  the  British  army  in  the 
Carnatic,  and  general  Abercrombie  the  army  formed  in  the  presi- 
dency of  Bengal.  Tippoo  was  compelled  to  return  to  his  capital 
of  Seringapatam ;  but  nothing  decisive  against  his  power  was 
effected  in  1790.  On  the  2Qth  of  January,  1791,  lord  Cornwallis 
assumed  the  command  of  the  army,  and  moved  from  Vellout  to- 
wards Vellore,  with  the  intention  of  penetrating  to  the  heart  of 
Tippoo's  dominions.  On  the  5th  of  March  he  invested  Ban- 
galore, about  two  hundred  miles  from  Madras.  On  the  mardh 
thither,  some  shameful  acts  of  pillage  had  been  committed,  which, 
in  a  General  Order,  lord  Cornwallis  described  as  "  shocking  and 
disgraceful  outrages" — as  "scenes  of  horror,  which,  if  they  should 
be  suffered  to  continue,  must  defeat  all  our  hopes  of  success,  and 
blast  the  British  name  with  infamy."  They*  were  repressed  by 
prompt  measures  of  severity  towards  the  marauders.  Bangalore 
was  taken  by  storm  on  the  2ist  of  March.  The  army  then  moved 
forward;  and  on  the  1 3th  of  May  took  up  a  position  at  Arikera 
on  the  banks  of  the  Caveri,  within  nine  miles  of  Seringapatam. 
Having  crossed  the  river,  Cornwallis  attacked  Tippoo  on  the  I5th, 
and  obtained  a  victory,  driving  the  Mysoreans  to  seek  refuge  under 
the  guns  of  their  capital.  The  city  was  within  view ;  but  Corn- 
wallis was  not  strong  enough  to  besiege  it.  The  expected  con- 
tingent of  the  Mahrattas  had  not  arrived.  Abercrombie  was  at 
Periapatam,  with  ample  stores  of  provisions  ;  whilst  the  army  of 
Cornwallis  was  suffering  severe  privations.  They  could  not  effect 
a  junction,  although  Cornwallis,  in  the  hope  of  doing  so,  had  moved 
up  the  Caveri  to  Caniambaddy.  In  a  private  letter  to  his  brother, 
the  Governor-General  describes  the  causes  of  the  retreat  which  he 
was  now  compelled  to  make  :  "  I  wish  to  tell  you  that  my  health 
has  not  suffered,  although  my  spirits  are  almost  worn  out,  and  that 
if  I  cannot  soon  overcome  Tippoo,  I  think  the  plagues  and  the 
mortification*,  of  this  most  difficult  war  will  overcome  me.  You 
\vill  have  heard  that  after  beating  Tippoo's  army,  and  driving  him 
into  the  island  of  Seringapatam,  I  was  obliged, — by  the  famine 
which  prevailed  amongst  our  followers,  and  especially  the  bullock- 
drivers,  by  the  sudden  and  astonishing  mortality  amongst  our 


CAPTURE   OF   SERINGAPATAM.  575 

cattle,  owing  to  the  scarcity  of  forage  and  a  contagious  distemper 
which  unhappily  attacked  them  when  they  were  too  weak  to  resist 
it,  and  by  the  unexpected  obstacles  to  my  forming  a  junction  with 
general  Abercrombie,  in  time  to  attempt  the  enterprize  before  the 
rising  of  the  river, — to  destroy  my  battering  guns  and  to  relinquish 
the  attack  of  Seringapatam  until  the  conclusion  of  the  rains.  Had 
the  numerous  Mahratta  army,  which  joined  me  on  the  26th  of  May 
unexpectedly  and  without  my  having  received  the  smallest  pre- 
vious notice,  arrived  a  fortnight  sooner,  our  success  would  have 
been  complete,  and  that  event  which  Mr.  Francis  and  Mr.  Hippes- 
ley  seem  so  much  to  apprehend — the  destruction  of  Tippoo's  power 
— would  have  actually  taken  place.  It  is,  however,  much  crippled ; 
and  if  he  should  not  propose  during  the  present  rains  such  terms 
as  the  Allies  can  reasonably  accept,  I  trust  we  shall  take  such  pre- 
cautions as  will  render  our  next  move  to  Seringapatam  effectual.''* 
The  next  move  to  Seringapatam  was  effectual.  Reinforce- 
ments had  been  sent  out  from  England  ;  and  during  the  autumn 
all  the  lines  of  communication  for  another  march  upon  the  capital 
of  Tippoo  had  been  opened.  Some  of  the  strong  hill  forts, 
especially  Severndroog  and  Octradroog,  had  been  stormed  and 
taken  by  the  troops  under  general  Meadows.  On  the  25th  of 
January,  Cornwallis,  with  22,000  men,  had  united  his  force  to  the 
troops  of  the  Nizam  and  the  Mahrattas,  and  commenced  his  march 
from  Severndroog.  On  the  5th  of  February  he  encamped  about 
six  miles  northward  of  Seringapatam.  The  Mysorean  army  was 
encamped  under  its  walls.  It  amounted  to  5000  horse  and  40,000 
foot.  The  city  was  defended  by  three  strong  lines  of  works  and 
redoubts,  in  which  300  pieces  of  artillery  were  planted.  Cornwallis 
reconnoitred  these  lines  on  the  morning  of  the  6th,  and  determined 
to  storm  them  that  night,  with  his  own  army,  without  communi- 
cating his  plan  to  his  allies.  At  eight  o'clock  the  British  moved 
in  three  columns  to  the  attack,  one  column  being  led  by  Corn- 
wallis himself.  The  moon  was  shining  brilliantly ;  but  the  sun 
of  the  next  day  was  declining  before  the  firing  ceased,  and  the 
whole  line  of  forts  to  the  north  of  the  Caveri  were  in  posses- 
sion of  the  British  forces.  Tippoo  retired  within  the  walls  of 
his  capital.  Preparations  for  the  siege  went  vigorously  on; 
but  negotiations  for  peace  were  at  the  same  time  proceeding. 
The  British  commander,  assured  of  his  triumph,  demanded  that 
Tippoo  should  cede  the  half  of  his  dominions;  should  pay  a 
sum  amounting  to  .£3,000.000 ;  should  release  all  his  prisoners  ; 
and  should  deliver  his  two  sons  as  hostages.  The  sultan  as- 

*  Cornwaliis's  "  Correspondence,"  vol.  ii.  p.  98. 


.  HISTORY   OF    ENGLAND. 

sembled  his  officers  in  the  great  mosque,  and  adjured  them, 
by  the  sacred  contents  of  the  koran,  whether  he  should  accept 
these  hard  terms.  They  all  held  that  no  reliance  could  be  placed 
upon  the  troops,  and  that  submission  was  inevitable.  On  the 
23rd  of  February  the  preliminaries  of  peace  were  signed ;  and  on 
the  25th  the  two  sons  of  Tippoo  were  surrendered  to  lord  Corn- 
wallis. Mr.  Ross,  the  editor  of  the  Cornwallis  Correspondence, 
says  that  he  often  heard  the  details  of  the  scene  from  his  father, 
general  Ross,  who  was  present :  "The  coolness  and  self-possession 
of  the  two  boys,  the  eldest  only  ten  years  old,  were  most  striking; 
and  the  more  than  paternal  kindness  of  lord  Cornwallis  not  only 
impressed  his  own  European  and  native  attendants  with  admi- 
ration, but  produced  in  the  minds  of  Tippoo's  Vakeels,  and  the 
other  Mysorean  spectators,  feelings  of  regard  which  were  never 
effaced."  The  definitive  treaty  of  peace  was  signed  on  the  igth 
of  March.  The  ceded  territories  were  divided  in  equal  portions 
between  the  Company,  the  Nizam,  and  the  Mahrattas.  On  the  4th 
of  May,  Cornwallis  wrote  to  his  brother,  "  Our  peace  will  no  doubt 
be  very  popular  in  England.  I  see  every  day  more  reason  to  be 
satisfied  with  it.  No  termination  of  the  war  could,  in  my  opinion, 
have  been  attended  with  more  solid  advantages  to  our  interest; 
and  the  deference  which  was  paid  to  us  on  the  occasion,  both  by 
friends  and  enemies,  has  placed  the  British  name  and  consequence 
in  a  light  never  before  known  in  India."  * 

The  subjection  of  Tippoo  was  most  opportune.  In  all  proba- 
bility Cornwallis,  who  was  blamed  by  some  for  not  insisting  upon 
harder  terms,  anticipated  the  probability  that  the  French  Revolu- 
tion would  involve  England  in  war,  and  therefore  he  made  peace 
whilst  it  was  in  his  power.  When  the  war  broke  out  he  hurried 
to  Madras.  But  his  presence  was  unnecessary.  Pondicherry  had 
already  been  taken  by  sir  John  Brathwaite  ;  and  the  French  had 
no  longer  a  footing  in  India.  The  agents  of  the  republic  were 
nevertheless  active ;  but  they  were  unable,  for  several  years,  to 
move  "  Citizen  Tippoo  "  into  a  course  of  open  hostility. 

In  the  decisive  interview  with  lord  Loughborough,  on  the  2oth 
of  January,  1793,  Mr.  Pitt  said  that  the  sooner  the  war  was  begun 
the  better, — "that  we  might  possess  ourselves  of  the  French 
islands."  The  French  islands  offered  a  paltry  prize  to  be  gained 
by  such  a  tremendous  risk.  The  west  India  islands  in  the  posses- 
sion of  the  French  since  the  peace  of  1783,  were  Tobago,  a  small 
territory  with  an  unhealthy  climate ;  St.  Lucia,  even  more  un- 
healthy ;  Martinique,  an  important  possession ;  and  Guadaloupe 

*  "  Correspondence,"  vol.  ii.  p.  166. 


THE    FRENCH    WEST    INDIA    ISLANDS.  577 

and  its  dependencies.  The  great  island  of  Hispaniola,  or  San 
Domingo,  partly  French  and  partly  Spanish,  was  not  a  colony 
with  which  any  nation  would  have  been  glad  to  meddle  in  its  then 
disturbed  condition.  The  imports  into  the  island  from  France  are 
stated  to  have  amounted  in  1789  to  three  millions  sterling,  and  its 
exports  to  six  millions,  this  commerce  employing  three  hundred 
thousand  tons  of  shipping,  and  thirty  thousand  seamen.*  An  in- 
surrection of  the  slaves  took  place  in  1791,  the  seeds  of  which 
were  sown  by  the  French  Revolution.  The  French  planters  and 
Creoles  had  talked  of  Liberty  and  Equality,  and  put  on  the  tri- 
coloured  cockade.  They  scorned  the  Mulattoes,  who,  in  1790, 
engaged  in  a  fruitless  revolt.  The  negroes  rose  against  their  mas- 
ters in  August,  1791.  This  fair  country  went  through  scenes  of 
bloody  insurrection,  and  was  plunged  into  a  terrible  anarchy, 
which  worked  itself,  in  course  of  time,  under  the  leadership  of 
remarkable  men  of  the  despised  race,  into  a  Black  republic.  The 
massacres  of  1791  were  the  impulses  of  vengeance  for  long  suffer- 
ing. They  were  urged  in  the  British  Parliament  as  a  reason  for 
maintaining  the  Slave  Trade  ;  and  the  insurrection,  which  had  be- 
come more  formidable  as  it  proceeded,  created  alarm  even  amongst 
the  English  abolitionists,  f 

At  this  time,  when  the  approaching  war  with  France  led  the 
government  of  Mr.  Pitt  to  look  to  the  necessity  of  defending  our 
own  colonial  possessions,  and  to  the  hope  of  adding  to  their  num- 
ber by  naval  enterprizes,  there  was  little  solicitude  about  those  vast 
regions  in  the  Pacific,  which  the  Spaniards  and  Portuguese  had 
left  undiscovered,  but  on  which  the  standard  of  England  was 
planted  early  in  the  reign  of  George  III.  The  results  of  the 
Voyages  of  Discovery  of  Byron,  Wallis,  Carteret,  and  Cook,  were 
feebly  and  imperfectly  followed  up.  Any  system  of  colonization 
that  could  be  permanently  useful  was  not  thought  of.  In  most 
cases  no  system  was  attempted.  The  regions  of  unbounded  extent 
and  inexhaustible  wealth  which  were  nominally  attached  to  the 
British  crown,  derived  small  advantage  from  British  civilization. 
The  condition  of  the  Australian  possessions,  seventy  years  ago, 
as  contrasted  with  their  present  greatness,  is  one  of  the  marvels 
of  our  history,  which  it  is  impossible  to  contemplate  without  pa- 
triotic emotion — without  a  feeling  of  the  mighty  destinies  that  were 
involved  in  the  Divine  protection  of  the  Anglo-Saxon  race — in  the 
growth  of  a  community  which,  having  built  up  its  own  civilization 

*  Speech  of  Mr.  BaHie,  "  Parliamentary  History,"  vol.  xxix-  col.  1073. 
t  "  Wilberforce  Correspondence, "  vol.  i.  p.  89. 

VOL.  VI.— 37 


578  HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 

upon  principles  of  rational  liberty,  went  forth  "  to  make  new 
nations "  of  freemen,  who  would  have  ties  of  consanguinity ; 
speaking  the  same  language,  and  bound  together  by  the  same 
principles  of  government  as  the  parent  state.  Continents  and 
islands,  compared  with  which,  in  extent  of  territory,  Britain  is  but 
a  speck  in  the  ocean,  have  thus  been  conquered  in  the  noblest  of 
victories,  the  victories  of  peace.  But  the  last  generation  little  un- 
derstood the  value  of  the  great  nations  they  were  founding.  They 
had  a  dim  sense  of  some  material  advantage  that  might  be  .derived 
from  the  displacement  of  aborigines  of  the  lowest  type  of  savage 
life,  but  a  dread  of  the  ferocity  of  higher  races,  that  in  their  fierce 
barbarism  appeared  incapable  of  being  amalgamated  with  Euro- 
pean habits  and  modes  of  thought. 

The  discoveries  which  have  been  attended  with  political  and 
social  consequences  of  which  it  is  difficult  to  speak  without  appar- 
ent exaggeration,  were  originally  impelled  by  the  pure  ardour  of 
scientific  inquiry.  In  August,  1768,  Lieutenant  James  Cook  was 
sent  out  in  the  ship  Endeavour,  by  order  of  the  British  gov- 
ernment, and  at  the  request  of  the  Royal  Society,  to  find  an 
appropriate  spot  in  the  South  Seas,  to  make  observations  upon 
the  expected  transit  of  Venus  over  the  sun's  disc,  in  June,  1769. 
Otaheite,  the  chief  island  of  the  Pacific,  had  been  discovered  by 
Wallis  in  1767,  and  had  been  called  "King  George  the  Third's 
Island."  Bougainville,  a  French  navigator,  had  visited  it  before 
the  time  when  Cook  established  an  observatory  for  the  transit  on 
the  northern  cape  of  the  island.  The  observations  were  made  ; 
and  during  a  residence  of  three  months  the  naturalists  who  had 
accompanied  the  expedition  investigated  the  productions  of  the 
country,  rich  with  the  cocoa-nut,  the  sugar-cane,  and  the  banana, 
and  especially  with  the  bread-fruit  tree — that  wonderful  gift  of 
heaven  to  a  fertile  climate,  which  might  enable  a  happy  race  to 
subsist  without  all  the  manifold  labours  that  are  requisite  to  pro- 
duce bread  from  corn.  The  natives,  it  was  said,  laughed  when 
they  were  told  of  our  tedious  processes  of  ploughing,  sowing,  har- 
rowing, reaping,  threshing,  grinding,  and  baking.*  Cook,  when  he 
left  Otaheite,  discovered  the  group  which  he  called  "  Society 
Islands,"  in  honour  of  the  learned  body  at  whose  instance  he  was 
sent  out.  But  in  that,  his  first  voyage,  he  explored  the  coasts  of  a 
country  which  had  been  discovered  by  Tasman,  a  Dutch  navi- 
gator, in  1642.  From  that  time  to  1769.  no  one  had  landed  upon 
those  two  islands,  now  so  familiar  to  us  as  New  Zealand.  Long 

*  Boswell's  Johnson,  May  7,  1773. 


NEW   ZEALAND. 


579 


neglected,  this  fine  country  had  no  regular  settlement  till  1840 
when  it  became  an  accredited  colony  of  the  British  government— 
a  land  henceforth  to  be  inhabited  by  a  great  off-shoot  of  the  Anglo- 
Saxon  stock,  with  all  the  manifold  blessings  of  the  religion,  'the 
knowledge,  the  industry,  of  our  own  nation,  whose  process  of  civ- 
ilization, under  Roman  colonizers,  was  far  less  rapid.  The  New 
Zealander  himself,  thirty  years  ago  a  clever  cannibal,  has  already 
been  absorbed  into  British  citizenship,  by  the  all-dominant  supe- 
riority of  higher  intellect  and  purer  morals.  But  this  great  good 
has  been  accomplished  by  treating  the  New  Zealander  as  an  ac- 
countable being,  with  rights  not  to  be  taken  from  him  by  the  rapa- 
city of  the  conquest.  He  has  been  dealt  with  as  the  proprietor  of 
the  soil ;  and  the  territory  of  the  settlers  has  been  purchased  and 
not  seized.  The  New  Zealanders,  by  far  the  highest  in  capacity  of 
the  barbarous  tribes,  have,  in  their  brief  colonization  of  twenty 
years,  manifested  the  possibility  of  raising  a  native  race  to  an  ap- 
preciation of  the  value  of  what  constitutes  civilization,  by  imparting 
to  them  the  blessings  on  which  we  pride  ourselves  as  Christians 
and  freemen. 

The  Dutchmen  had  discovered  New  Holland ;  but  they  left  it 
unexplored.  Cook  minutely  surveyed  the  Eastern  Coast,  which  he 
called  New  South  Wales.  The  naturalists  of  the  expedition,  Mr. 
Joseph  Banks  and  Dr.  Solander,  found  many  curious  plants  in  an 
inlet  of  this  coast,  which  they  denominated  "  Botany  Bay."  What 
a  word  of  terror  was  "Botany  Bay,"  when,  in  1792,  there  were 
only  sixty-seven  free  settlers  in  New  South  Wales.  When  the 
American  colonies  became  independent,  and  even  before  their  in- 
dependence, they  refused  to  receive  "  those  unfortunate  individuals 
who  were  convicted  of  such  smaller  felonies  as  are  too  frequent  in 
a  country  where,  from  the  freedom  of  the  government,  no  strict 
police  can  be  established."*  There  was  a  very  summary  remedy 
for  the  higher  offences,  such  as  stealing  in  a  dwelling-house  above 
the  value  of  five  shillings — death.  The  capital  punishment  system 
grew  somewhat  odious,  and  the  system  of  the  hulks  was  more  gene- 
rally adopted.  At  last  it  was  recollected  that  Captain  Cook  had 
found  a  convenient  place  to  which  criminals,  not  worthy  of  Tyburn, 
might  be  banished;  and  so,  from  1787  to  1792,  about  five  thou- 
sand convicts  had  been  sent  to  New  South  Wales  and  Norfolk 
Island.  In  the  first  years  of  the  colony  these  wretched  creatures 
were  literally  slaves — employed  in  clearing  woods  to  gain  a  spot 
for  cultivation  ;  half-starved — with  no  hope  of  escape,  with  the  sea 
before  them,  and  a  boundless  waste  behind.  The  "  Botany  Bay 

*  Sinclair,  "  History  of  the  Revenue,"  vol.  ii.  p.  102. 


580  HISTORY   OF    ENGLAND. 

Eclogues  "  of  Southey,  written  in  1 794,  open  with  this  lament  of 
a  female  convict : — 

"  Once  more  to  daily  toil,  once  more  to  wear 
The  livery  of  shame,  once  more  to  search 
With  miserable  task  this  savage  shore." 

Contrast  the  felon  of  Sydney  Cove  with  the  prosperous  merchants 
and  artisans  of  Sydney  ; — contrast  the  miserable  outcast  flying  for 
his  life  to  the  deserts  of  the  kangaroo,  with  the  flock  master  reck- 
oning his  thousands  of  sheep  on  the  fertile  plains  which  he  calls 
his  own ; — contrast  England  paying  millions  for  the  transport  of 
convicts,  with  England  receiving  new  impulses  to  her  industry  from 
the  Australian  gold  fields.  The  most  extravagant  dreams  in  1793 
of  the  believers  in  the  probable  results  of  commercial  and  coloniz- 
ing enterprize,  never  could  picture  any  change  approaching  that 
gradual  result  of  British  energy,  "  which  converted  a  transmarine 
gaol  into  one  of  the  greatest  communities  of  free  men  on  the 
earth."  * 

The  very  remote  possibility  of  founding  a  great  empire  in  Aus- 
tralia when  the  flag  of  England  was  first  hoisted  on  the  shores  of 
Sydney  Cove  in  1788,  could  offer  no  prospect  of  compensation  for 
the  loss  of  our  American  colonies.  Canada,  at  the  time  when  war 
with  France  was  imminent,  was  not  wholly  to  be  relied  upon  for 
loyalty  to  her  conquerors,  with  her  mixed  French  population;  and 
with  her  proximity  to  the  United  States,  whose  people,  if  not  her 
government,  were  rather  too  much  enamoured  of  the  ideal  liberty 
of  the  French  Republic  to  open  their  eyes  to  its  aggressions.  Brit- 
•  ain  must  rely  upon  herself  alone.  She  would  persist  in  submitting 
to  hard  bargains  with  mercenary  despotisms  to  make  them  fight 
for  their  own  existence ;  but  she  would  mainly  have  to  depend 
upon  her  own  right  arm.  Her  military  establishment  was  not  equal 
to  any  sudden  emergency.  "  It  certainly  was  impolitic,"  says  Sir 
John  Sinclair,  "  reducing  the  peace  establishment  of  this  country 
so  low  as  it  was  in  1793,  when  from  the  state  of  France  it  was  evi- 
dent that  all  Europe  was  likely  to  get  into  a  convulsed  state."  f 
The  military  expenditure  of  that  year  was  under  two  millions.  The 
expected  rupture  with  Spain  in  1790,  and  with  Russia  in  1791,  had 
occasioned  great  activity  in  the  English  dockyards ;  and  an  im- 
proved plan  of  providing  imperishable  stores  in  the  magazines  had 
enabled  ships  to  be  quickly  equipped  for  service.  The  British  fleet, 
at  the  commencement  of  1793,  included  115  ships  of  the  line,  car- 

*  "  Quarterly  Review,"  vol.  cvii.  p.  i. 

t  "  History  of  the  Revenue,"  vol.  ii.  p.  195. 


FRANCE   DECLARES   WAR.  58 1 

rying  8718  guns.  The  ships  of  the  French  line  were  76,  carrying 
6002  guns.*  The  British  navy,  at  the  commencement  of  1793, 
comprised  411  vessels  of  all  rates,  of  which  only  135  were  in  com- 
mission, f  "  At  no  previous  period  had  France  possessed  so  pow- 
erful a  navy,"  says  Mr.  James.  The  English  fleet  was  not  so 
readily  manned  as  the  French  fleet.  The  appeals  to  republican 
enthusiasm  to  fit  out  privateers  were  more  stimulating  than  the 
sober  addresses  to  the  loyalty  of  our  mercantile  classes.  On  the 
3ist  of  December  the  French  Minister  of  Marine  addressed  a 
letter  to  the  friends  of  liberty  in  the  sea-ports  : — "  The  government 

of  England  is  arming The  king  and  his  parliament  intend 

to  make  war  against  us.  Will  the  English  republicans  suffer  it  ? 
Already  these  free  men  show  their  discontent,  and  the  repugnance 
which  they  have  to  bear  arms  against  their  brothers  the  French. 
Well !  we  will  fly  to  their  succour  ;  we  will  make  a  descent  on  the 
island  ;  we  will  lodge  there  fifty  thousand  caps  of  liberty  ;  we  will 
plant  there  the  sacred  tree  ;  and  we  will  stretch  out  our  arms  to 
our  republican  brethren.  The  tyranny  of  their  government  shall 
soon  be  destroyed."  M.  Chauvelin  returned  to  Paris  with  the 
same  wild  notions  of  the  amount  of  disaffection.  He  judged,  as 
foreigners  are  too  apt  to  judge,  that  our  freedom  of  writing  and 
speaking — the  safety-valves  of  the  political  machine — indicated 
violence  and  revolt.  The  war  was  probably  inevitable  ;  but  the 
French  Convention  took  the  initiative  in  declaring  war.  On  the 
nth  of  February,  a  message  from  the  king  was  delivered  to  the 
two  Houses,  in  which  it  was  stated  that  "  the  Assembly  now  exer- 
cising the  powers  of  government  in  France  have,  without  previous 
notice,  directed  acts  of  hostility  to  be  committed  against  the  per- 
sons and  property  of  his  majesty's  subjects,  in  breach  of  the  lavr 
of  nations,  and  of  the  most  positive  stipulations  of  treaty  ;  and  have 
since,  on  the  most  groundless  pretensions,  declared  war  against  his 
majesty  and  the  United  Provinces." 

*  James's  "  Naval  History,"  vol.  i.  p.  91. 
t  See  Tables  to  Tame's  "  History,"  No.  i. 


582  HISTORY   OF    ENGLAND. 


CHAPTER  XXXI. 

Resolutions  proposed  by  Mr.  Fox  against  war  with  France. — Commercial  distress. — Par- 
liamentary Reform  opposed  by  Mr.  Pitt. — Traitorous  Correspondence  Bill. — Pitt, 
Burke,  Fox, — the  diversity  of  their  views  of  England's  policy. — Sanguine  expectations 
of  warlike  success. — Dumouriez  in  Holland. — Battle  of  Neerwinden. — Defection  of 
Dumouriez. — Measures  of  the  Jacobins. — Revolutionary  Tribunal. — Committee  of 
Public  Salvation. — Excessive  prices  of  Commodities  in  Paris. —  Produced  by  the  de- 
preciation of  Assignats. — Plunder  of  the  Shops. — Law  of  Maximum. — Forced  Levy 
of  troops. — La  Vendee  in  insurrection. — Mr.  Fox's  motion  for  Peace. — Insurrection 
against  the  Girondin  Deputies. — Their  arrest  and  flight. — Assassination  of  Marat  by 
Charlotte  Corday. — Note  on  the  French  Revolutionary  Kalendar. 

THE  opposition  of  Mr.  Fox  to  the  war  with  France,  supported 
as  he  was  by  only  a  small  band  of  his  friends,  was  consistent  and 
unremitting.  He  moved  an  amendment  to  the  Address  on  the 
King's  Message  respecting  the  Declaration  of  War,  and  was  de- 
feated without  a  division.  He  proposed,  a  week  after  this  royal 
Message  had  been  delivered,  a  series  of  Resolutions,  the  object 
of  which  was  to  declare,  that  it  was  not  for  the  honour  or  interest 
of  Great  Britain  to  make  war  upon  France,  on  account  of  the  in- 
ternal circumstances  of  that  country ;  that  the  complaints  against 
the  conduct  of  the  French  Government  were  not  sufficient  to  jus- 
tify war  in  the  first  instance  without  having  attempted  to  obtain 
redress  by  negotiation ;  that  the  pretended  grounds  of  the  war 
with  France,  the  security  of  Europe,  and  the  rights  of  independent 
nations,  had  been  disregarded  in  the  case  of  Poland  ;  that  no  engage- 
ments ought  to  be  entered  into  with  other  powers  which  might  pre- 
vent Great  Britain  making  a  separate  peace.  After  an  acrimonious 
debate,  Mr.  Fox's  motion  was  rejected  by  an  overwhelming  ma- 
jority, only  forty-four  members  supporting  the  Resolutions.  Again, 
and  again,  Fox  advocated  negotiations  for  peace  with  those,  who- 
ever they  were,  who  had  the  government  of  France  in  their  hands. 
"Why,"  he  said,  "was  every  man  in  England  to  be  a  sufferer  be- 
cause the  people  of  France  were  in  confusion  ?  .  .  .  Let  them 
ask  every  man  in  the  kingdom  who  had  any  commercial  dealings, 
whether  the  accounts  he  received  from  all  parts  of  the  kingdom 
did  not  call  for  a  conclusion  to  this  war."*  The  embarrassments 
in  trade  had  been  so  serious,  from  whatever  cause,  that  Parliament 

*  "  Parliamentary  History,"  vol.  xxx. — Debate  of  the  i8th  June. 


OPPOSITION   TO   THE   WAR    BY   MR.    FOX.  583 

had  sanctioned  an  issue  of  five  millions  in  exchequer  bills,  to  be 
advanced  by  commissioners,  in  loans  to  commercial  firms  who  could 
give  security  for  repayment.  The  demand  for  peace,  upon  the 
plea  that  war  produced  distress  and  privation  to  the  bulk  of  the 
people,  was  thus  met  by  Burke,  in  one  of  his  most  virulent  per- 
sonal attacks  upon  Fox  : — "  The  ground  of  a  political  war  is,  of  all 
things,  that  which  the  poor  labourer  and  manufacturer  are  the  least 
capable  of  conceiving.  This  sort  of  people  know  in  general  that 
they  must  suffer  by  war.  It  is  a  matter  to  which  they  are  suffi- 
ciently competent,  because  it  is  a  matter  of  feeling.  The  causes  of 
a  war  are  not  matters  of  feeling,  but  of  reason  and  foresight,  and 
often  of  remote  considerations,  and  of  a  very  great  combination  of 
circumstances,  which  theyxxz.  utterly  incapable  of  comprehending; 
and,  indeed,  it  is  not  every  man  in  the  higher  classes  who  is  alto- 
gether equal  to  it."  *  According  to  this  doctrine,  the  war  with  the 
French  republican  government  was  "  a  political  war,"  of  the  jus- 
tice or  expediency  of  which  only  the  initiated  in  the  mysteries  of 
statesmanship  were  competent  to  form  an  opinion.  The  bulk  of 
the  people  might  feel  the  consequences  of  such  a  war,  but  they  had 
no  capacity  for  the  investigation  of  its  causes,  and  had  therefore 
only  to  confide  and  suffer.  Pitt,  proud  and  confident  as  he  was, 
made  no  attempt  to  measure  this  war  by  the  calculating  foresight 
only  of  official  wisdom.  He  was  driven  into  the  war,  undoubtedly 
against  his  wishes,  by  the  violence  of  popular  opinion  rather  than 
by  the  calculations  of  his  own  statesmanship.  He  did  not  claim 
an  infallibility  which  regarded  with  contempt  the  general  tone  of 
public  feeling.  He  carried  the  greater  portion  of  the  industrial 
community  with  him  in  his  resistance  to  extreme  democratic  prin- 
ciples, by  describing  with  a  rhetoric  that  could  not  exaggerate  the 
reality,  the  cruelties  and  oppressions  perpetrated  in  France  under 
the  names  of  Liberty  and  Equality.  He  defended  his  own  aban- 
donment of  the  cause  of  Parliamentary  Reform  by  dwelling  upon 
the  consequences  of  extended  suffrage  in  France.  In  the  great 
debate  on  Mr.  Grey's  motion  for  Reform,  previous  to  which  peti- 
tions had  been  read  praying  for  Universal  Suffrage,  Mr.  Pitt  said, 
"In  what  is  called  the  government  of  the  multitude,  they  are  not 
the  many  who  govern  the  few,  but  the  few  who  govern  the  many. 
It  is  a  species  of  tyranny  which  adds  insult  to  the  wretchedness  of 
its  subjects,  by  styling  its  own  arbitrary  decrees  the  voice  of  the 
people,  and  sanctioning  its  acts  of  oppression  and  cruelty  under 

the   pretence  of  the   national   will The   question  is, 

whether  you  will  abide  by  your  Constitution,  or  hazard  a  change, 

*  "  Conduct  of  the  Minority." 


584  HISTORY   OF   ENGLAND. 

with  all  that  dreadful  train  of  consequences  with  which  we  have 
seen  it  attended  in  a  neighbouring  kingdom  ?"  *  The  fanaticism 
of  the  republicans  who  ruled  France  has  been  compared  to  that  of 
the  Mussulmans,  "who  vvith  the  Koran  in  one  hand,  and  the  sword 
in  the  other,  went  forth  conquering  and  converting."  The  fiery 
zeal  of  the  higher  and  middle  classes  of  England  has  been  com- 
pired  to  that  of  the  Crusaders,  "  who  raised  the  cry  of  Deus  vult 
at  Clermont."  f  The  watchword  of  "  King  and  Constitution  » 
was,  on  one  side  of  the  Channel,  as  potent  as  the  war-whoop  of 
"  Liberty  and  Equality  "  on  the  othor  side.  There  was  no  great 
"  reason  and  foresight  "  required  to  plunge  each  nation  into  a  con- 
flict of  twenty  years. 

The  passions  that  were  involved  in  this  political  war  impelled 
the  alarmists  to  call  for  such  stringent  measures  of  precaution 
and  coercion  as  Great  Britain  had  not  witnessed  since  the  days  of 
the  exiled  Stuarts.  The  Chancellor,  lord  Loughborough,  was 
ready  with  a  "  Traitorous  Correspondence  Bill,"  drawn  by  the 
Attorney-General,  sir  John  Scott,  and  introduced  by  him  to  the 
House  of  Commons  on  the  I5th  of  March.  They  considered  the 
law  of  Edward  III.  against  adhering  to  the  king's  enemies  as  in- 
sufficient to  prevent  the  French  being  supplied  with  arms  and 
stores,  and  they  made  it  high  treason  even  to  enter  into  an  agree- 
ment for  supplying  them.  They  called  for  the  penalties  of  treason 
against  those  who  should  invest  capital  in  the  French  funds  or  in 
the  purchase  of  lands  in  France.  Forfeiture  and  corruption  of 
blood  were  not  to  follow  a  conviction ;  but,  on  the  other  hand,  the 
evidence  of  two  witnesses,  and  the  further  protections  secured  to 
the  accused  by  the  statutes  of  William  and  Anne,  were  to  be  set 
aside.  The  arbitrary  tendencies  of  the  Lord  Chanceller  and  his 
Attorney-General  could  not  be  more  strongly  exhibited  than  in  the 
proposition  that  a  man  might  be  hanged,  drawn,  and  quartered, 
upon  the  evidence  of  one  witness,  without  bei'-g  furnished  with  a 
copy  of  the  indictment  against  him ;  and  without  the  privilege  of 
being  defended  by  counsel.  The  Bill  passed  the  House  of  Com- 
mons in  spite  of  the  opposition  of  Fox,  Sheridan,  and  Erskine ; 
but  in  the  House  of  Lords  this  attempt  to  take  from  the  accused 
the  means  of  defence,  under  the  appearance  of  lenity,  was  modified. 
The  penalties  of  the  law  of  treason,  and  its  protections,  remained 
as  before.  This  definition  of  treasonable  acts  was  very  widely  ex- 
tended. The  minister  who  had  never  sanctioned  any  act  of  the 
executive,  or  any  proposal  of  the  legislature,  of  an  unconstitutional 

*  "  Parliamentary  History,"  vol.  xxx.  col.  902 — Debate  of  May  7. 
t  Macaulay— "  Life  of  Pitt." 


PITT,    BURKE,    FOX.  585 

or  arbitrary  tendency,  was  now  to  become  identified  with  meas- 
ures such  as  Englishmen  regarded  as  belonging  to  past  gener- 
ations of  oppression.  The  minister  who  had  built  his  reputation 
upon  his  financial  prudence  was  to  lay  a  load  of  debt  upon  his 
country  that  even  now  seems  fabulous. 

Mr.  Pitt  began  this  tremendous  contest  by  undervaluing  the 
power  of  a  nation  whose  pfovernment,  if  government  it  could  be 
called,  was  one  of  factions  without  a  common  head,  each  contending 
for  supremacy ;  of  a  nation  that  had  lost  every  ordinary  source  of 
strength, — settled  laws,  established  property,  natural  leaders,  public 
credit.  Obscure  men,  such  as  Jourdan,  who  had  carried  a  pack  from 
fair  to  fair,  were  commanding  the  French  armies.  Men  taken  from 
the  ranks,  it  was  held,  could  know  nothing  of  strategy,  and  could 
have  no  authority  over  their  fellows.  In  despising  their  origin  and 
training,  it  was  forgotten  that  the  passion  for  Equality  gave  them  a 
more  powerful  influence  in  the  French  armies  than  was  ever 
wielded  by  the  titled  Marshals  of  the  old  monarchy.  The  English 
minister  sent  the  king's  second  son,  whose  military  experience  had 
been  limited  to  a  field-day  in  Hyde-Park,  to  terrify  the  raw  levies 
of  the  republic  wjth  two  regiments  of  Guards  ;  and  with  a  contin- 
gent of  Hanoverians  and  Hessians,  all  disciplined  upon  the  most 
approved  principles  of  "the  bookish  theorick."  Mr.  Pitt  knew 
that  Austria  and  Prussia  hated  each  other — would  act  upon  no 
common  agreement  for  large  and  disinterested  purposes  in  the  con- 
duct of  the  French  war.  He  knew  that  Russia  and  Prussia  were 
intent  upon  aggressions  as  hateful  and  as  dangerous  as  the  pre- 
tensions of  the  French  republicans ;  that  not  until  they  were 
gorged  with  the  spoils  of  Poland  would  they  seriously  direct  their 
thoughts  to  the  common  dangers  of  established  governments ;  but 
that  meanwhile  they  would  let  the  war  take  the  languid  course  of 
a  Coalition  without  a  presiding  mind  to  direct  it  to  salutary  ends, 
or  to  arrest  the  selfish  schemes  which  some  indulged  of  territorial 
aggrandizement.  And  yet  Mr.  Pitt  had  no  doubt  that  the  expedi- 
tion which  he  sent  to  Holland  in  March  under  the  duke  of  York, 
and  his  armaments  against  the  West  India  islands,  constituted 
that  vigorous  prosecution  of  the  war  which  he  promised  when  he 
brought  forward  his  Budget ;  and  he  could  not  comprehend  why 
Mr.  Fox  had  no  confidence  in  numerous  foreign  alliances,  saying, 
that  "  he  dreaded  our  being  led  into  dangerous  engagements  for  the 
prosecution  of  the  most  unjustifiable  purposes."  It  soon  became 
manifest  that  the  war  was  not  carried  on  with  that  vigour  on  the 
part  of  the  Allies  which  alone  could  ensure  success  ;  that  purposes 
wholly  unjustifiable  interfered  with  that  unanimity  which  justice 


586  HISTORY   OF   ENGLAND. 

and  disinterestedness  alone  could  inspire.  In  a  very  few  month's 
it  was  found  out  that  there  was  a  new  element  in  this  contest,  in 
dealing  with  which  historical  experience  was  no  guide.  In  October, 
1793,  Burke  acknowledged  that  a  state  of  things  had  arisen,  "of 
which,  in  its  totality  if  History  furnishes  any  examples  at  all,  they 
are  very  remote  and  feeble."  Who,  he  says,  could  have  imagined 
knew  and  unlooked-for  combinations  and  modifications  of  political 
matters,  in  which  property  should,  through  the  whole  of  a  vast 
kingdom,  lose  all  its  importance  and  even  its  influence ; — who 
could  have  thought  that  a  formidable  revolution  in  a  great  empire 
should  have  been  made  by  men  of  letters  who  would  become  the 
sovereign  rulers ; — that  atheism  could  produce  one  of  the  most 
violently  operative  principles  of  fanaticism  ; — that  administrative 
bodies  in  a  state  of  the  utmost  confusion,  and  of  but  a  momentary 
duration,  should  be  able  to  govern  the  country  and  its  armies  with 
an  authority  which  the  most  settled  senates,  and  the  most  respected 
monarchs,  scarcely  had  in  the  same  degree  ?  "  This,  for  one,  I 
confess  I  did  not  foresee,"  says  Burke,  and  he  gives  the  reason  of 
his  own  short-sightedness  as  the  apology  for  others  :  "  I  believe 
very  few  were  able  to  enter  into  the  effects  of  mere  terror  .... 
For  four  years  we  have  seen  loans  made,  treasuries  supplied,  and 
armies  levied  and  maintained,  more  numerous  than  France  ever 
showed  in  the  field,  by  the  effects  of  fear  alone."  *  The  experience 
had  come,  in  less  than  a  year  of  warfare,  which  was  to  be  more  in- 
structive than  "  History  or  books  of  speculation,"  but  not  for  en- 
couragement or  warning,  till  the  passions  had  cooled  down  which 
prevented  its  instruction  teaching  us  what  to  do  and  what  to  for- 
bear doing. 

Nevertheless,  in  this  condition  of  "new  and  unlooked-for  combi- 
nations and  modifications  of  political  matters,"  it  would  be  presump- 
tuous to  affirm  that  either  of  the  extreme  principles  advocated  on 
the  one  hand  by  Burke,  and  on  the  other  hand  by  Fox,  would  have  led 
eventually  to  happier  results  than  the  middle  policy  pursued  by  Pitt. 
The  French  Revolution  was  permitted  by  the  Supreme  Arbiter  of 
human  affairs  to  run  its  course  of  savage  crime,  of  wild  anarchy,  of 
crushing  despotism,  of  insatiate  ambition,  of  aspirations  for  univer- 
sal empire,  to  be  arrested  at  last  in  its  mad  career,  by  the  necessity 
of  all  nations  combining  for  their  common  safety.  They  might 
have  successfully  combined  at  an  earlier  period  to  prevent  the 
aggressions  of  the  Republic,  had  they  possessed  the  wisdom  to  have 
left  France  to  choose  what  form  of  Government  it  pleased.  They 
roused  the  Republicans  of  every  faction  to  almost  superhuman 

*  "  Policy  of  the  Allies."    The  words  in  Italics  are  so  in  the  original. 


THE   DIVERSITY   OF   THEIR   OPINIONS.  587 

efforts  of  resistance,  when  they  believed  that  a  king  would  be  again 
forced  on  them  ;  that  their  noblesse  would  be  brought  back  with 
all  their  privileges  and  immunities  ;  that  the  confiscated  properties 
would  return  to  their  old  possessors  ;  that  France  itself  would  be 
dismembered  of  some  of  its  fairest  provinces.  It  was  the  day- 
dream of  Burke  to  do  all  these  impossible  things,  except  to  parti- 
tion France.  He  would  restore  the  monarchy — he  would  restore 
the  Church — he  would  restore  the  Aristocracy — he  would  have  no 
peace  with  the  Regicides — he  would  have  "  a  long  war  "  to  bring 
back  the  France  before  1789.  To  him  the  Constitutionalists  were 
as  odious  as  the  Jacobins  ;  La  Fayette  and  Marat  were  equal  in 
villainy.  These  desires  were  not  fulfilled ;  the  Revolution  brought 
its  tardy  wisdom  as  well  as  its  instant  terror.  Europe  had  not  to 
groan  for  another  century  under  the  leaden  sway  of  unmitigated 
Absolutism  ;  England  had  not  to  rush  upon  untried  theories  to 
supersede  her  constitutional  freedom.  Pitt  had  no  monarchical  en- 
thusiasm to  oppose  to  Republican  fanaticism.  He  would  treat  with 
any  Government  in  France  that  he  considered  stable  ;  he  would 
fight  those  whom  lord  Auckland,  in  his  Memorial  to  the  States-Gen- 
eral, denounced  as  " miserables"  in  the  belief  that  their  reign 
would  be  very  short ;  that  exhausted  France  would  soon  lie  at  his 
feet ;  that  a  solid  peace  would  be  concluded  with  some  responsible 
form  of  power  when  the  revolutionary  conflagration  had  burnt  out. 
The  Jacobins  dreaded  the  policy  of  Pitt  more  than  the  idealities  of 
Burke.  They  called  Burke  "  a  madman  " — they  called  Pitt  "  a 
monster."  The  style  in  which  "  that  Orestes  of  the  British  Parlia- 
ment, the  madman  Burke  ;  that  insolent  lord  Grenville  ;  or  that 
plotter  Pitt,"  were  spoken  of  in  the  French  Convention  was  this : 
"  They  have  misrepresented  the  independence  of  the  French  nation. 
They  have  invariably  represented  us  as  robbers  and  cannibals. 
Soon  shall  they  be  laid  prostrate  before  the  statue  of  Liberty,  from 
which  they  shall  rise  only  to  mount  the  scaffold  that  awaits  them, 
and  to  expiate  by  their  death  the  evils  in  which  they  have  involved 
the  human  race."  *  Fox,  on  the  contrary,  from  his  original  sym- 
pathy with  the  new  order  of  things  during  the  existence  of  the 
States-General,  from  his  exultation  upon  the  repulse  of  the  Allies 
from  the  French  frontier,  from  his  constant  abhorrence  of  the  war 
in  which  Great  Britain  was  engaged,  was  in  France  held  to  be 
wedded  to  the  whole  course  of  the  Revolution  as  firmly  as  Paine 
was  wedded.  There  is  a  curious  anecdote  illustrative  of  this 
French  feeling  in  the  Journal  of  Mrs.  Elliott.  She  was  arrested, 

*  Quoted  by  Burke,  from  the  speech  of  citizen  Lasource,  in  the  Montteur  of   i;tli 
March.—"  Parliamentary  History,"  vol.  xxx.,  col.  614. 


588  HISTORY   OF    ENGLAND. 

and  carried  before  the  Comite  de  Surveillance  ;  a  letter  addressed 
to  Mr.  Fox  having  been  found  in  her  possession.  At  that  sitting 
Vergniaud  interposed  in  her  behalf.  "  I  don't  see  why  this  woman 
should  have  been  arrested  because  a  letter  directed  to  Mr.  Fox 
was  found  in  her  house.  Had  it  been  directed  to  the  monster  Pitt 
you  could  have  done  no  more.  Mr.  Fox  is  our  friend  ;  he  is  the 
friend  of  a  free  nation,  he  loves  our  Revolution,  and  we  have  it 
under  his  own  hand-writing."  Fox  carried  his  party  feeling  too 
far,  but  he  did  good  service  to  his  country  by  his  dogged  resistance 
to  the  measures  of  Pitt.  He,  with  a  few  others,  saved  us  from  the 
full  swing  of  rampant  Toryism,  in  those  days  when  fear  was  harden- 
ing the  hearts  of  men  in  these  isles,  and  driving  them  into  measures 
which,  without  some  check  such  as  Fox,  Grey,  Sheridan,  Erskine, 
interposed,  might  have  resulted  in  despotism  or  civil  war. 
Madame  de  Stael  has  said,  with  an  impartiality  which  history 
should  endeavour  to  emulate,  "  However  advantageous  it  might  have 
been  to  England,  that  Mr.  Pitt  should  have  been  the  head  of 
the  State  in  the  most  dangerous  crisis  in  which  that  country  ever 
found  itself,  it  was  not  the  less  so  that  a  mind  as  enlarged  as  that 
of  Mr.  Fox  should  have  maintained  principles  in  spite  of  circum- 
stances, and  have  known  how  to  preserve  the  household  gods  of 
the  friends  of  liberty  in  the  midst  of  the  conflagration."  * 

A  wise  political  teacher  has  justly  described  the  delusion  under 
which  the  majority  in  Parliament  and  in  the  country  laboured  at  the 
beginning  of  1793  :  "  It  is  a  memorable  example  of  the  intoxica- 
tion of  men,  and  of  their  Governors,  that  at  the  commencement  of 
this  war,  the  bare  idea  of  the  possibility  of  its  failure  would  have 
been  rejected  with  indignation  and  scorn."  f  With  the  exception 
of  the  brilliant  successes  of  our  own  navy,  we  shall  have  to  pursue 
a  narrative  of  a  series  of  disasters  which  culminated  at  Austerlitz, 
and  which  carried  Pitt,  broken-hearted,  to  his  grave.  The  sanguine 
views  of  those  who  expected  that  a  volcano  could  be  extinguished 
by  a  fire  engine,  were  never  more  strongly  exhibited  than  in  a 
speech  of  lord  Loughborough,  at  a  period  when  the  English 
Guards,  having  landed  in  Holland,  assisted  in  the  relief  of  Wil- 
liamstadt,  and  thus  in  some  degree  influenced  the  movements  of 
Du:nouriez,  which  we  shall  presently  relate.  On  the  third  reading 
of  the  Traitorous  Correspondence  Bill,  on  the  22nd  of  April,  lord 
Lauderdale  had  expressed  a  doubt  whether  nineteen  hundred  men, 

*  "  Considerations  sur  les  principaux^venements  de  la  Revolution  Franchise,"  1818. 
t  Mackintosh — "  Reasons  againU  the  French  War" — Miscellaneous  Works,  vol.  ili.,  p. 
180. 


BATTLE  OF   NEERWINDEN.  589 

sent  out  under  the  command  of  the  duke  of  York,  had  saved  Hol- 
land, or  driven  the  French  from  the  Austrian  Netherlands.  Lord 
Loughborough,  in  his  reply,  was  extravagant  in  his  appreciation  of 
the  consequences  which  had  already  attended  the  warlike  opera- 
tions of  the  British  Government.  "  To  the  promptitude  in  sending 
out  those  few  troops  under  the  able  command  of  an  illustrious  per- 
sonage was  to  be  ascribed  that  Holland  was  saved  ;  that  the  French 
were  defeated  and  driven  back  ;  that  all  Europe,  from  Petersburgh 
to  Naples,  was  delivered  from  the  plunder,  the  confiscation,  the 
rapine,  the  murder,  the  destruction  of  order,  morality,  and  religion, 
with  which  it  was  threatened  by  the  prevalence  of  French  arms  and 
French  principles."  * 

Dumouriez  had  entered  Antwerp  in  triumph  on  the  3oth  of 
November,  1792.  He  moved  with  his  army  on  the  I7th  of  Feb- 
ruary, 1793,  to  carry  the  war  into  Holland.  During  his  occupation 
of  Belgium,  the  French  Convention  had  sent  Commissioners  into 
that  country,  of  whose  tyrannical  conduct  Dumouriez  bitterly  com- 
plained in  a  letter  which  he  addressed  to  the  President  of  the  Con- 
vention on  the  1 2th  of  March:  "  We  have  oppressed  the  Belgians 
by  every  species  of  vexation  ;  have  violated  the  sacred  rights  of 
their  liberty,  and  have  imprudently  insulted  their  religious  opin- 
ions." He  exposed  the  pretended  union  of  several  parts  of  Bel- 
gium to  France.  "  The  union  of  Hainault  to  the  Republic  was 
effected  by  sabres  and  muskets  ;  and  that  of  Brussels  by  a  handful 
of  men  who  could  exist  in  trouble  only,  and  by  a  few  sanguinary 
men  assembled  to  intimidate  the  citizens."  Marat  denounced  the 
moderation  and  equity  of  Dumouriez  as  "  crimes  against  the  Revo- 
lution ;"  and  he  was  accused  of  aspiring  to  the  title  of  duke  of 
Brabant,  or  to  the  Stadtholclership.  The  victor  at  Jemappes  was 
hated  by  the  party  of  the  Mountain,  and  he  knew  that  if  they 
gained  the  ascendency  his  destruction  was  inevitable.  Danton, 
however,  was  his  friend,  and  the  Jacobins  suspended  their  avowal 
of  hostility  till  a  more  convenient  season.  Dumouriez  marched  in- 
to Holland,  and  soon  obtained  possession  of  Breda,  Klundert,  and 

*  "  Parliamentary  History,"  vol.  xxx.  col.  739. — The  "few  troops  "  become  a  great 
army  in  the  narrative  of  Sir  A.  Alison.  Under  the  date  of  April  20,  1793,  he  says,  "A 
corps,  consisting  of  twenty  thousand  English,  was  embarked,  and  landed  in  Honand, 
under  the  command  of  the  Duke  of  York.  According  to  the  statements  of  the  Secretary 
at  War,  the  total  number  of  the  effective  forces  of  the  kingdom  at  the  commencement  of 
hostilities  was  22,000  ;  and,  deducting  those  employed  in  foreign  settlements,  the  land  forces 
did  not  amount  to  more  than  9,000  effective  men.  During  the  first  year  of  the  campaign 
10 ,000  additional  men  had  been  raised.  This  enabled  the  government  gradually  to  send  rein- 
forcements to  the  duke  of  York  ;  but  with  9,000  disposable  troops  in  the  early  part  ol 
i  /  i.-,,  Mr.  Pitt  would  have  had  some  difficulty  in  embarking  20,000  for  Holland  in  April.— 
(See  "  Parliamentary  History,"  vol.  xxx.  col.  1248,  and.  col.  1330.) 


590  HISTORY  OF   ENGLAND. 

Gertruydenburg.  But  he  was  brought  to  a  stand  at  Williamstadt, 
which  was  occupied  by  a  Dutch  garrison  who  had  not  been  cor- 
rupted, and  by  the  English  detachment  of  Guards.  The  generals 
who  were  second  in  command  to  Dumouriez  had  sustained  severe 
reverses  whilst  he  had  marched  into  Holland.  In  a  Proclamation 
to  the  French  nation  he  says,  "  I  made  myself  master  of  three 
strong  places,  and  was  ready  to  penetrate  into  the  middle  of  Hol- 
land, when  I  learned  the  disaster  of  Aix-la-Chapelle,  the  raising  of 
the  siege  of  Maestricht,  and  the  sad  retreat  of  the  army.  By  this 
army  I  was  loudly  summoned  :  I  abandoned  my  conquests  to  fly 
to  its  succour."  On  the  i6th  of  March  the  prince  of  Cobourg, 
commanding  the  Imperialists,  was  in  position  at  Neerwinden  ;  and 
upon  the  arrival  of  Dumouriez  the  small  river  of  the  Geete  only 
separated  the  two  armies.  The  river  was  crossed  by  the  French 
en  the  1 8th.  In  their  attack  upon  the  Austrians  they  were  defeated 
with  a  loss  of  four  thousand  men ;  and  were  compelled  to  return  to 
their  former  position.  The  hour  of  misfortune  had  now  arrived  ; 
and  with  the  French  Convention  the  certain  remedy  for  defeat  was 
the  guillotine  for  the  unhappy  commander — pour  encourager  les 
autres.  Dumouriez  knew  what  was  in  reserve  for  him  when,  on 
the  2nd  of  April,  six  Commissioners  arrived  in  his  camp  to  sum- 
mon him  to  the  bar  of  the  Convention.  He  refused  to  obey,  and 
ordered  his  Germans  to  take  the  Commissioners  as  their  prisoners, 
but  to  do  them  no  harm.  They  were  sent  to  Tournay,  to  be  kept 
as  hostages  for  the  safety  of  the  royal  family.  Dumouriez  had  been 
in  secret  communication  with  the  Austrian  general  Mack  ;  and  an 
agreement  had  been  come  to,  that  the  French  army  should  evacu- 
ate Belgium  ;  that  the  Allied  armies  should  not  invade  France ; 
but  that  Dumouriez  should  march  upon  Paris,  to  overthrow  the 
Jacobins  and  to  restore  the  Constitutional  Monarchy.  On  the  day 
when  the  French  Commissioners  had  failed  in  their  arrest  of  Du- 
mouriez, he  addressed  a  Proclamation  to  the  French  nation,  in 
which  he  said,  "  Frenchmen  !  we  have  a  rallying  point  which  can 
stifle  the  monster  of  anarchy  :  'tis  the  Constitution  we  swore  to 
maintain  in  1789,  '90,  and  '91  :  it  is  the  work  of  a  free  people,  and 
we  shall  remain  free."  On  the  4th  he  was  to  complete  his  arrange* 
rrifents  with  the  Prince  of  Cobourg,  near  Conde.  Although  in  great 
danger  cf  being  seized  by  some  volunteers,  he  accomplished  his 
purpose  ;  and  a  Proclamation  of  the  Prince  was  agreed  upon,  and 
published,  in  which  the  alliance  with  the  French  general  for  the 
purpose  of  establishing  -  constitutional  king  was  avowed.  When 
Dumouriez  returned  to  his  army  on  the  5th,  escorted  by  a  body  of 
imperial  cavalry,  he  learned  that  his  artillery  had  left  the  camp, 


MEASURES   OF   THE    JACOBINS.  591 

and  that  large  bodies  of  troops  had  marched  to  general  Dampierre 
at  Valenciennes.  The  chances  of  restoring  France  to  any  system 
which  should  combine  order  with  liberty  was  at  an  end  for  one 
generation.  Dumouriez  lived  an  exile  in  England  till  1823.  In 
the  Proclamation  of  the  prince  of  Cobourg,  issued  on  the  5th  of 
April,  he  stated  that  he  was  seconding  the  beneficent  intentions  of 
general  Dumouriez  to  restore  to  France  its  constitutional  monarch, 
with  the  means  of  rectifying  such  experienced  abuses  as  may  exist ; 
and  he  declared,  on  his  word  of  honour,  that  he  should  enter  the 
French  territory  without  any  view  of  making  conquests,  and  that 
if  any  strong  place  should  fall  into  his  hands  he  should  regard  it  as 
a  sacred  deposit.  After  the  failure  of  Dumouriez's  project  a  Con- 
gress was  held  at  Antwerp,  attended  by  the  representatives  of 
Austria,  Prussia,  and  Great  Britain ;  and  then  the  prince  of  Co- 
bourg issued  a  second  Proclamation,  in  which  he  revoked  his 
former  declaration,  and  announced  that  he  should  prosecute  the 
war  with  the  utmost  vigour.  The  Jacobins,  now  almost  supreme, 
had  for  three  weeks  or  more  been  preparing  to  resist  any  invasion 
of  the  French  territory — or  any  attempt  to  give  France  back  a  king, 
constitutional  or  absolute — with  a  terrible  energy  of  which  the 
world  had  seen  no  previous  example,  in  its  daring  or  its  atrocity. 
"  The  utmost  vigour  "  of  the  prince  of  Cobourg  was  that  of  a 
rocket  in  comparison  with  a  thunderbolt. 

On  the  loth  of  March,  the  Convention  passed  a  decree  for  the 
establishment  of  an  extraordinary  Criminal  Tribunal,without  appeal, 
for  the  trial  of  all  traitors,  conspirators,  and  counter-revolutionists. 
This  was  the  terrible  Revolutionary  Tribunal,  composed  of  five 
judges  who  were  to  be  bound  by  no  forms  of  procedure,  and  of  a 
permanent  jury.  These  jurymen  were  to  satisfy  themselves  as  to 
facts  in  any  way  that  they  could,  and  to  vote  audibly  in  the  presence 
of  a  Paris  mob.  To  direct  the  proceedings  of  this  awful  tribunal, 
from  whose  decrees  there  was  no  appeal,  a  Public  Accuser  was 
appointed.  Fouquier  Tinville  filled  this  office  with  an  excess  of 
zeal  that  permitted  none  of  the  ordinary  weaknesses  of  humanity 
in  judge  or  jury  to  interfere  with  the  sacred  duty  of  giving  to  the 
guillotine  its  daily  food.  He  had  only  one  remedy  for  the  cure  of 
lukewarmness  towards  the  Revolution — Death.  He  was  in  so 
great  a  hurry  to  do  his  work,  that  identity  of  person  was  some- 
times unnecessary  when  an  accused  stood  before  him.  Two 
women  of  the  same  name  having  been  arrested,  he  settled  the  ac- 
counts of  both,  for  fear  of  a  mistake.  You  are  idle,  he  would  say, 
to  his  officers— I  want  two  or  three  hundred  every  decade.*  Over 

*  See  Note  on  the  Revolutionary  Kalendar. 


5Q2  HISTORY   OF   ENGLAND. 

the  Revolutionary  Tribunal  presided  the  Comite  de  Salui  Public, 
which  was  instituted  at  the  end  of  March.  Consisting  only  of  nine 
members,  it  will  have  all  those  appliances  of  despotism  at  its  com- 
mand which  cannot  be  so  well  managed  by  that  discordant  body 
the  Convention,  of  which  Assembly  a  very  large  party,  the  Giron- 
dins,  are  utterly  sick  of  the  system  which  has  been  growing  into 
irresistible  strength,  since  they  winked  at  the  September  mas- 
sacres, and  equivocated  with  the  murder  of  the  king.  If  the 
Comite  de  Salut  Ptiblic  has  its  centralizing  functions,  extending  to 
all  matters  civil  and  military,  the  local  agencies  for  carrying  on  the 
system  of  terror  are  not  less  efficient.  In  every  township  of 
France  there  is  a  Comite  Revolutionnaire,  each  consisting  of 
twelve  staunch  patriots,  chosen  by  universal  suffrage;  and  of 
these  committees  there  are  forty-four  thousand,  all  busy  in  making 
domiciliary  visits,  arresting  and  examining  the  suspected,  giving 
certificates  of  good  citizenship — Cartes  de  Civisme — and  filling 
the  prisons  with  victims  for  the  Moloch  of  Liberty.  There  is 
much  to  do  in  this  mad  world  of  France  in  which  all  the  ordinary 
relations  of  social  life  are  overthrown.  The  whole  state  machinery 
is  out  of  gear,  and  nevertheless  it  must  work.  Oiling  the  wheels 
and  cranks  will  be  useless,  so  they  must  be  moved  by  main 
strength.  "The  effects  of  fear  alone  "  will  do  a  great  deal.  But 
fear  will  not  give  the  people  food,  when  the  interruption  of  com- 
mercial dealings,  by  the  utter  want  of  confidence  between  seller 
and  buyer,  keeps  food  out  of  the  markets.  In  1792  Paris  had  been 
provisioned  with  grain  and  flour,  not  in  the  ordinary  course  of  de- 
mand and  supply,  but  by  the  municipality.  The  loss  to  the  govern- 
ment upon  this  year's  transactions  was  enormous.  In  February, 
1793,  it  was  reported  to  the  Convention  that  the  price  of  bread 
must  either  be  raised  by  the  municipality,  or  an  extraordinary  tax 
must  be  levied,  to  keep  down  the  price  of  bread.  The  Convention 
granted  the  tax,  to  be  levied  upon  an  ascending  scale  upon  prop- 
erty, moveable  and  immoveable.  The  municipality,  however,  could 
not  keep  down  prices,  even  by  buying  in  the  dearest  market  and 
selling  in  the  cheapest.  The  farmers  kept  their  grain  in  their 
barns  ;  the  merchants  kept  their  sugar  in  their  warehouses  ;  the 
soap-boilers  made  no  stock  to  supply  the  retailers.  They  did  not 
like  the  coin  in  which  they  were  to  be  paid  in  exchange  for  their 
commodities.  When  the  National  Assembly  and  the  National  Con- 
vention had  declared  the  domains  of  the  church  and  the  estates  of 
the  emigrants  to  be  public  property,  they  put  into  circulation  a 
new  species  of  Paper-Money,  estimated  upon  the  supposed  value 
of  that  property,  denominated  Assignats,  the  holders  of  them  be- 


ASSIGNATS.  593 

ing  assignees  of  so  much  of  the  property  thus  represented.  Lands 
and  houses  might  be  bought,  and  were  largely  bought,  by  the 
holders  of  assignats,  but  they  were  not  otherwise  convertible.  As 
a  necessary  consequence  the  value  of  this  paper-money  fluctuated 
according  to  the  belief  in  the  permanency  of  the  Revolution ;  and 
in  the  same  way  the  purchasers  of  the  confiscated  property  became 
fewer  and  fewer  when  the  hope  of  a  constitutional  monarchy  had 
passed  away,  and  France  was  governed  in  a  great  degree  by  the 
Jacobin  Clubs.  But  the  more  decided  was  the  depreciation  of  the 
Assignats  the  more  unlimited  was  their  issue  by  the  Convention. 
As  an  inevitable  consequence  the  nominal  price  of  every  article  of 
subsistence  and  household  necessity  was  prodigiously  increased. 
Sugar,  coffee,  candles,  soap,  were  doubled  in  price.  The  wages  of 
labour  remained  stationary ;  for  there  was  a  superabundance  of 
labour  through  the  general  interruption  to  production  and  ex- 
change. The  washerwomen  of  Paris  go  to  the  Convention  to  say 
that  soap  is  so  dear  that  their  trade  will  be  at  an  end.  We  want 
soap  and  bread,  cry  the  poor  blanchisseuses  of  the  Seine.  Com- 
missioners of  the  Sections  superintend  the  distribution  of  loaves 
to  those  who  can  pay.  Furious  women  surround  the  grocers' 
shops,  demanding  sugar.  The  terrified  grocers  roll  their  sugar- 
hogsheads  into  the  streets,  and  the  citizenesses  weigh  it  out  at 
twenty-two  sous  a  pound.  Some  paid ;  some  helped  themselves 
without  paying ;  and  the  pallid  shopkeepers  helplessly  looked  on  ; 
for  had  not  Marat,  the  friend  of  the  people,  said  in  his  journal  of 
the  25th  of  February  that  there  would  be  an  end  of  high  prices  if 
a  few  shops  were  pillaged,  and  a  few  shopkeepers  hanged  at  their 
own  doors  ?  The  shopkeepers,  however,  brought  out  their  stores 
when  their  price  was  tendered  in  metallic  currency.  The  Conven- 
tion had  its  strong  remedy  against  the  unpatriotic  bourgeoisie.  It 
decreed  that  whoever  exchanged  gold  or  silver  for  a  higher  amount 
in  assignats  than  their  nominal  value,  and  whoever  stipulated  for 
a  different  price  of  commodities  if  paid  in  paper  or  in  specie, 
should  be  subjected  to  six  years'  imprisonment.  The  final  step  in 
this  direction  was  to  fix  a  maximum  of  price  upon  all  agricultural 
produce  and  upon  all  merchandize.  The  system  was  extended 
from  Paris  to  the  departments,  with  the  certain  results  of  the  rum 
and  misery  which  follow  every  violation  of  economical  laws.  And 
yet  amidst  this  total  derangement  of  the  ordinary  principles  of 
social  intercourse,  the  people  lost  no  faith  in  their  Republic.  They 
were  stirred  up  to  the  belief  that  their  miseries  were  not  the  re- 
sult of  natural  causes,  but  were  produced  by  the  intrigues  of  the 
aristocrats,  aided  by  the  gold  of  Pitt.  Marat,  who  had  excited  the 
VOL.  VI— 38 


594  HISTORY  OF   ENGLAND. 

plunder  of  the  shops,  was  in  vain  denounced  by  a  small  majority 
in  the  Convention,  who  foresaw  the  quick  approach  of  the  reign 
of  anarchy  and  bloodshed.  The  Mountain  was  gradually  deriving 
new  strength  from  the  hunger  and  violence  of  the  populace.  "The 
people  can  do  no  wrong,"  said  Robespierre.  Danton,  who  had 
manifested  many  indications  of  disgust  at  the  proceedings  of  the 
extreme  democratic  faction,  was  carried  away  by  their  ascendency, 
and  supported  the  establishment  of  the  Revolutionary  Tribunal. 
Its  scaffolds  were  quickly  set  up.  Sansculottism  soon  became 
supreme.  Misery  fell  upon  all  classes,  and  especially  upon  those 
who  depended  upon  the  wages  of  industry.  But  every  Parisian, 
rich  or  poor,  trembled  and  obeyed ;  and  the  provinces,  for  the 
greater  part,  did  the  same,  for  Paris  ruled  France.  Most  French- 
men were  ready  to  defend  their  country  against  the  foreigner,  and 
to  maintain  any  form  of  revolutionary  government,  however  op- 
pressive, in  preference  to  the  restoration  of  the  ancient  order  of 
things  which  had  been  destroyed.  Their  fanaticism  was  stimu- 
lated by  arts  not  wholly  unlike  the  delusion  practised  upon  the 
Kaffir  tribes  in  1857,  who  were  persuaded  by  their  chief  to  de- 
stroy their  cattle  and  corn,  that,  rendered  desperate  by  want,  they 
might  rush  to  a  war  which  would  sweep  the  British  colonists  from 
the  land.  The  Assignats  and  the  Law  of  Maximum  produced  the 
same  desperation  in  France.  The  Jacobin  leaders  knew  perfectly 
well  what  would  be  the  consequences  of  their  insane  decrees. 
They  traded  on  the  despair  of  the  people. 

"  The  Jacobin  Revolution,"  wrote  Burke,  "  is  carried  on  by  men 
of  no  rank,  of  no  consideration ;  of  wild  savage  minds,  full  of  levity, 
arrogance,  and  presumption ;  without  morals,  without  probity, 
without  prudence.  What  have  they  then  to  supply  their  innumerable 
defects,  and  to  make  them  terrible  even  to  the  firmest  minds  ?  One 
thing,  and  one  thing  only — but  that  thing  is  worth  a  thousand — 
they  have  energy."  *  This  energy  was  put  forth  in  the  formation 
of  Revolutionary  Committees,  which  were  to  reject  all  the  ordinary 
principles  of  justice  and  mercy ;  and  in  desperate  conflicts  with 
those  natural  laws  by  which  the  exchanges  of  mankind  are  regu- 
lated. But  the  greater  the  domestic  miseries  of  France,  the  readier 
were  its  population  to  turn  from  peaceful  pursuits  to  the  excitement 
of  war.  The  Convention,  on  the  roth  of  March,  decreed  a  forced 
levy  of  three  hundred  thousand  men.  This  decree  few  dared 
to  disobey,  and  many  submitted  to  it  without  reluctance,  and 
even  with  patriotic  ardour.  There  was  a  remarkable  exception  in 
the  district  of  La  Vendee,  in  which  singular  country  an  insurreo 

-  "  Policy  of  the  Allies-" 


FORCED  LEVY  OF  TROOPS. 


595 


tionary  spirit  was  developed  in  the  population,  when  their  priests 
were  ejected  and  the  king  had  perished  on  the  scaffold.  When  the 
peasantry  were  about  to  be  dragged  from  their  homes  to  serve  in 
the  armies  of  the  Revolution,  this  spirit  broke  out  into  open  violence 
against  the  republican  authorities.  In  La  Vendee  the  zeal  of 
Loyalty  and  Religion  came  into  open  conflict  with  the  passions 
excited  under  the  names  of  the  Rights  of  Man  and  the  Age  of 
Reason. 

In  the  British  Parliament,  on  the  i;th  of  June,  Mr.  Fox  proposed 
an  elaborate  Address  to  the  Crown,  the  object  of  which  was  to 
make  it  the  most  earnest  and  solemn  request  of  the  Commons, 
that  his  majesty  would  employ  the  earliest  measures  for  the  re- 
establishment  of  peace  with  France.  The  proposition  was  rejected 
by  the  very  large  majority  that  the  ministry  now  commanded.  In 
the  course  oli  his  speech  Mr.  Fox  contended,  in  answer  to  the 
question  which  had  been  often  asked,  "  whether  we  were  to  treat 
with  France  in  its  present  state,"  that  we  ought  to  treat,  and 
ultimately  must  treat,  with  whoever  had  the  government  in  their 
hands,  with  him  or  them,  be  he  or  they  whom  they  might.  "  Good 
God,"  cried  the  orator,  "what  was  there  in  their  proceedings  that 

made  us  look  for  an  established  government  among  them  ? 

Let  them  suffer  the  penalties  of  their  own  injustice  ; — let  them 
suffer  the  miseries  arising  from  their  own  confusion.  Why  were 
the  people  of  England  to  suffer  because  the  people  of  France  were 
unjust?  "  The  reply  of  Mr.  Pitt  was  not  easy  to  controvert,  "  Where 
is  our  security  for  the  performance  of  a  treaty,  where  we  have 
neither  the  good  faith  of  a  nation,  nor  the  responsibility  of  a 
monarch  ?  The  moment  that  the  mob  of  Paris  becomes  under  the 
influence  of  a  new  leader,  mature  deliberations  are  reversed,  the 
most  solemn  engagements  are  retracted,  our  free  will  is  altogether 

controlled  by  force Should  we  treat  with  Marat,  before 

we  had  finished  the  negotiation  he  might  again  have  descended  to 
the  dregs  of  the  people  from  whom  he  sprung,  and  have  given 
place  to  a  more  desperate  villain."  *  At  this  precise  point  of  time 
it  was  no  figure  of  speech  for  Mr.  Pitt  to  refer  to  .Marat  as  the 
representative  of  the  executive  power  in  France.  "  Let  us  consider," 
said  Mr.  Burke  in  the  same  debate,  "  the  possibility  of  negotiation.'' 
The  minister  Le  Brun  is  in  gaol.  The  minister  Claviere  is  not  to 
be  found.  "  Would  you  have  recourse  to  Roland  ?  Why,  he  is  not 
only  in  gaol,  but  also  his  wife  along  with  him,  who  is  said  to  be  the 
real  minister  ....  Brissot  is  likewise  in  gaol,  bearing  a  repeti- 
tion of  that  sort  of  misfortune  to  which  it  is  hoped  that  habit  may 
*  "Parliamentary  History,"  vol.  xxx.  col.  994—1018. 


596  HISTORY   OF   ENGLAND. 

reconcile  him.  Pay  your  addresses  to  Egalite,  and  you  will  find 
him  in  his  dungeon  at  Marseilles.  There  then  only  remains  my 
celebrated  friend,  the  mild  and  merciful  Marat." 

The  Girondins,  on  whose  authority  in  the  Convention  rested 
the  only  hope  of  a  stable  government  in  France, — a  government 
not  founded  upon  the  supremacy  of  the  rabble, — had  fallen,  never 
to  rise  again,  on  the  2nd  of  June.  They  then  became  wanderers  in 
the  provinces,  or  prisoners  in  the  dungeons  of  Paris.  They  had 
relied  upon  their  patriotic  eloquence  and  their  republican  virtue. 
They  would  hold  no  communion  with  the  movers  of  insurrection 
and  massacre ;  and  they  found  the  terrible  earnestness  of  ignorant 
ruffianism  too  strong  for  respectable  philosophy.  Their  majority 
in  the  Convention  availed  them  nothing ;  for  that  Assembly  had 
come  into  open  conflict  with  the  physical  force  of  Paris,  hounded 
on  by  the  Jacobin  Club,  when  the  idol  of  the  populace,  Marat,  was 
sent  for  trial  before  the  Revolutionary  Tribunal.  As  more  prudent 
men  than  the  Girondins  might  have  expected,  the  sanguinary 
demagogue  was  acquitted ;  and  he  was  carried, — as  a  successful 
candidate  was  formerly  chaired  in  England — upon  the  shoulders 
of  the  mob,  to  the  hall  of  the  Convention,  amidst  th,e  cry  of  "  Death 
to  the  Girondins."  Robespierre,  between  whom  and  Marat  there 
was  mutual  hatred,  saw  that  in  giving  his  support  to  this  "  friend 
of  the  people,"  whose  mode  of  testifying  his  friendship  was  to 
excite  to  plunder  and  butchery,  he  was  using  an  instrument  for 
the  destruction  of  the  only  party  that  had  the  confidence  of  the 
middle  classes.  He  denounced  the  Girondins  in  the  Convention 
as  men  who  had  wished  to  save  the  tyrant  Louis,  and  had  conspired 
with  the  traitor  Dumouriez.  The  Commune  of  Paris  had  obtained 
a  power  which  was  opposed  to  all  steady  government,  and  the 
Girondins  tried  to  bring  them  under  the  control  of  a  Commission 
of  Twelve  appointed  by  the  Convention.  The  mob  was  roused  to 
that  fury  which  never  waits  to  inquire  and  to  reflect,  when  victims 
are  pointed  out  for  its  vengeance.  On  the  3ist  of  May  the  mob 
declared  itself  in  a  state  of  permanent  insurrection — a  phrase  which 
indicated  that-  the  ordinary  operations  of  justice  were  suspended, 
in  the  same  way  that  martial  law  supersedes  the  accustomed  course 
of  legal  authority.  On  the  2nd  of  June,  the  Convention  was  sur- 
rounded by  an  armed  force,  whose  decrees  were  to  be  pronounced 
by  a  hundred  pieces  of  artillery.  Resistance  was  in  vain.  Twenty- 
two  of  the  Girondin  leaders  were  conducted  to  prison.  Many  of 
their  friends  escaped  to  the  provinces.  Some  who  had  fled  from 
the  guillotine  died  by  their  own  hands.  The  political  existence  of 
the  party  was  at  an  end. 


ASSASSINATION   OF   MARAT. 


597 


For  the  most  odious  of  the  assassins  of  the  anarchical  republic 
there  was  the  vengeance  of  assassination  also  in  store.  The  story 
of  Charlotte  Corday  has  been  told  by  Lamartine  with  a  power  of 
picturesque  narrative  which  few  have  equalled.  The  naked  facts 
can  only  be  related  by  ourselves.  In  the  city  of  Caen  resided,  in 
r793,  a  grand-daughter  of  the  great  tragic  poet,  Corneille.  She 
was  an  enthusiast,  devoted  to  those  ideas  of  the  new  philosophy 
which  she  had  derived  from  her  father,  and  from  the  secret  study 
of  Rousseau  in  the  convent  in  which  she  had  passed  her  girlhood. 
Some  of  the  proscribed  Girondins  had  come  to  reside  in  Normandy ; 
and  from  their  eloquent  invectives  against  the  terrorists  who  were 
degrading  the  cause  of  the  revolution  by  their  crimes,  she  derived, 
in  common  with  her  neighbours,  a  hatred  of  Marat  as  the  personi- 
fication of  all  that  was  atrocious  in  the  rulers  of  the  populace. 
Petion,  Barbaroux,  with  many  others  of  the  fugitive  deputies; 
called  up  this  disgust  towards  the  ruling  faction  of  Paris,  by  their 
oratory  and  their  proclamations.  Formidable  bands  of  young  men 
enrolled  themselves  to  march  to  Paris,  in  order  to  rescue  liberty 
from  the  assaults  of  anarchy.  Amongst  the  number  of  these 
volunteers  was  .one  who  aspired  to  Charlotte's  love,  but  with  a  timid 
reserve.  Her  enthusiasm  suggested  that  she  had  a  higher  call  of 
duty  than  the  indulgence  of  a  feeling  suited  to  more  tranquil  times. 
She  felt  that  if  the  ferocity  which  now  guided  the  Revolution  was 
not  arrested,  her  province,  and  the  neighbouring  districts  now  in 
insurrection,  would  become  the  scene  of  the  most  terrible  carnage. 
She  took  her  resolution.  If  Marat  should  fall  there  might  be 
hope  for  the  Republic.  She  travelled  to  Paris,  which  she  entered 
on  the  nth  of  July.  With  some  difficulty  she  obtained  admission 
to  the  mean  lodging  of  Marat,  on  the  evening  of  the  I3th.  She 
found  him  in  a  bath  ;  and  there  she  slew  him.  When  examined, 
she  said  that  she  saw  civil  war  ready  to  devastate  France ;  that 
she  deemed  Marat  to  be  the  chief  cause  of  the  public  calamities  ,• 
and  that  she  sacrified  her  life,  in  taking  his,  to  save  her  country. 
Her  execution  quickly  followed.  The  wretch  whom  she  had  mur- 
dered was  decreed  a  public  funeral  in  the  Pantheon.  Danton  pro- 
nounced his  eulogy  as  "  the  divine  Marat." 


59^ 


HISTORY  OF   ENGLAND. 


NOTE  ON  THE  FRENCH  REVOLUTIONARY 
KALENDAR. 


IN  reading  the  French  historians  of  the  period  from  the  declaration  of  the  Republic  in 
1792  to  the  end  of  1805,  we  find  the  dates  of  events  not  given  according  to  the  common 
kalendar,  but  according  to  the  most  puzzling  of  all  systems  of  chronology,  the  Republican 
Calendar  adopted  by  the  Convention.  In  our  own  history  we  give  the  dates,  thus  found 
in  French  writers,  according  to  the  Gregorian  Kalendar  ;  but  it  may  be  useful  here  to 
present  a  complete  view  of  the  Revolutionary  Kalendar;  which  view  we  adopt,  with  some 
abridgment,  from  "  The  English  Cyclopaedia  of  Arts  and  Sciences." 

The  Convention  decreed,  on  the  24th  of  November,  1793,  that  the  common  era  should 
be  abolished  in  all  civil  affairs :  that  the  new  French  era  should  commence  from  the 
foundation  of  the  republic,  namely  on  the  22nd  of  September,  1792,  on  the  day  of  the  true 
autumnal  equinox,  when  the  sun  entered  Libra  at  gh  igm  308  in  the  morning,  according  to 
the  meridian  of  Paris  ;  that  each  year  should  begin  at  the  midnight  of  the  day  on  which  the 
true  autumnal  equinox  falls ;  and  that  the  first  year  of  the  French  republic  had  begun  on 
the  midnight  of  the  22nd  of  September,  and  terminated  on  the  midnight  between  the  2ist 
and  22nd  of  September,  1793.  To  produce  a  correspondence  between  the  seasons  and  the 
civil  year,  it  was  decreed,  that  the  fourth  year  of  the  republic  should  be  the  first  sextile, 
or  leap  year ;  that  a  sixth  complementary  day  should  be  added  to  it,  and  that  it  should 
terminate  the  first  Franciade  ;  that  the  sextile  or  leap-year,  which  they  called  an  Olympic 
year,  should  take  place  every  four  years,  and  should  mark  the  close  of  each  Franciade : 
that  the  first,  second,  and  third  centurial  years,  namely  too,  200,  and  300  of  the  republic 
should  be  common,  and  that  the  fourth  centurial  year,  namely,  400,  should  be  sex- 
tile  ;  and  that  this  should  be  the  case  every  fourth  century  until  the  4oth,  which  should 
terminate  with  a  common  year.  The  year  was  divided  into  twelve  mtnths  of  thirty  days 
each,  with  five  additional  days  at  the  end,  which  were  celebrated  as  festivals,  and  which 
obtained  the  name  of  "  Sansculottides."  Instead  of  the  months  being  divided  into 
weeks,  they  consisted  of  three  parts,  called  Decades,  of  ten  days  each.  It  is  however  to 
be  observed  that  the  French  republicans  rarely  adopted  the  decades  in  dating  their  letters, 
or  in  conversation,  but  used  the  number  of  the  day  of  each  month  of  their  kalendar.  The 
republican  kalendar  was  first  used  on  the  26th  of  November,  1793,  and  was  discontinued 
on  the  3ist  of  December,  1805,  when  the  Gregorian  was  resumed. 

The  decrees  of  the  National  Convention,  which  fixed  the  new  mode  of  reckoning, 
were  both  vague  and  insufficient.  A  French  work,  "  Concordance  des  Calendriers  Rdpubli- 
cain  et  Gre'gorien,"  par  L.  Rondonneau,  puts  every  day  of  every  year  opposite  to  its  day 
of  the  Gregorian  kalendar.  It  is  to  actual  usage  that  we  must  appeal  to  know  what  the 
decrees  do  no  not  prescribe — namely,  the  position  of  the  leap-years.  The  following  list, 
made  from  the  work  above  mentioned,  must  be  used  as  a  correction  of  the  usual  accounts, 
in  which  the  position  of  the  leap-years  is  not  sufficiently  regarded. 

An  I.  begin 

II.  ft 

Sext.  III.  " 

IV.  " 

V.  " 

VI.  « 
Sext.  VII.  " 

VIII.  " 


Sept. 

Sept. 

22,    I792 
22,    1793 

Sext.  IX. 
X. 

begins       23,  1800 
23,  1801 

22,    1794 

Sext.  XI. 

23,  1802 

23,    I?9S 

An  XII. 

24,  1803 

22,    1796 

XIII. 

23,  1804 

22,    1797 

XIV. 

"            23,  180? 

22,    1798 

ended  31  December,  1805. 

*3»    1799 

NOTE  ON  THE  FRENCH  REVOLUTIONARY  KALENDAR.   599 

When  the  Gregorian  year  is  not  leap-year,  the  beginnings  of  the  months  are  as  fol- 
lows, according  as  the  republican  year  begins  on  September  22,  23,  or  24 : — 


Vende'miaire  is 

Sept. 

22,   23,   24 

Jan. 

is 

Niv. 

12,    II,      O 

Brumaire 

is 

Oct. 

22,   23,   24 

Feb. 

is 

Pluv. 

13,    12,      I 

Frimaire 

is 

Nov. 

21,   22,   23 

March 

is 

Vent. 

ii    10,    9 

Nivose 

is 

Dec. 

21,   22,   23 

April 

is 

Germ. 

12     II,      O 

Pluviose 
Ventose 
Germinal 

is 
is 
is 

Jan. 
Feb. 
March 

20,    21,   22 

19,  20,  ai 

21,   22,    23 

. 

May 
June 
July 

is 
is 
is 

Flor. 
Prair. 
Messid. 

12     II,      O 

13      12,       I 
13      12,    !l 

Flore"al 

IB 

April 

2O,   21,    22 

Aug. 

is 

Thermid. 

14     13,    12 

Prairial 

is 

May 

2O,   21,   22 

Sept. 

is 

Fructid. 

'S>    '4-    13 

Messidor 
Thermidor 

is 
is 

June 
July 

19,     20,    21 
19,   2O,   21 

Oct. 

Nov. 

is 
is 

Vende'm. 
Brum. 

10,     o,     8 
n,   10,    9 

Fruetidor 

is 

Aug. 

18,    10,   20 

.," 

Dec. 

is 

Frim. 

ii,  10,    9 

But  when  the  Gregorian  year  is  leap-year  the 

beginnings  of  the  months  are  as  follow*, 

according  as  the  republican  year  begins  on  Sept 

mber  22, 

23,  or  24  :— 

Vende"m. 

is 

Sept. 

22,   23,   24 

Jan. 

is 

Niv. 

ft,       It      O 

Brum. 

is 

Oct. 

22,  23,    24 

Feb. 

is 

Vent. 

'3> 

2, 

I 

Frim. 

is 

Nov. 

21,   22,   23 

March 

•  is 

Pluv. 

12, 

I, 

o 

Niv. 

is 

Dec. 

21,   22,    23 

April 

is 

Germ. 

'3, 

2, 

t 

Pluv. 

is 

Jan. 

2O,    21,    21 

May 

is 

Flor. 

13* 

2, 

a 

Vent. 
Germ. 

is 
is 

Feb. 
March 

19,    20,   21 
20,    21,   22 

June 
July 

is 
is 

Prair. 

Messid. 

14, 
«4> 

3, 

3, 

a 

a 

Flor. 

is 

April 

19,    20,  21 

Aug. 

is 

Thermid. 

'5> 

4, 

3 

Prair. 

is 

May 

19,    20,   21 

Sept. 

is 

Fructid. 

16, 

5, 

4 

Messid. 

is 

June 

18,    19,   20 

Oct. 

is 

Vende'm. 

ii, 

°> 

9 

Thermid. 

is 

July 

iS,    19,  20 

Nov. 

is 

Brum. 

12, 

I, 

to 

Fructid. 

is 

Aug. 

17,    18,    19 

Dec. 

is 

Frim. 

12, 

II 

0 

For  instance,  what  is  14  Flore'al,  An  XII.  ?  The  republican  year  begins  Sept.  24, 
xSoj,  so  Floreal  falls  in  1804,  which  is  Gregorian  leap-year.  Look  at  the  third  table,  and 
when  the  year  begins  Sept.  24,  the  ist  of  Floreal  is  April  21 ;  consequently  the  i4th  is 
May  4,  1804.  Again,  what  is  June  17,  1800,  in  the  French  kalendar?  The  year  is  not 
Gregorian  leap-year;  and  An  VIII.  contains  it,  which  begins  Sept.  23.  Look  in  the 
second  table,  and  in  such  a  year  it  appears  that  June  i  is  the  iath  of  Prairial ;  therefor* 
June  17  is  Prairial  28. 


6oo 


TABLE   OF   CONTEMPORARY   SOVEREIGNS. 


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CHRONOLOGICAL  TABLE  OF  TREATIES. 

(Continued  from  Vol.  p.  502.) 

1750  October  5 :  Treaty  between  England  and  Spain,  by  which  England  renounced  the 

Assiento  contract  for  the  supply  of  slaves,  included  in  the  peace  of  Utrecht,  in 

»7'3- 
'755  June  8  :  Commencement  of  war  by  the  English,  by  the  attack  on  two  French  frigates 

in  America. 
1756  January  16 :  Treaty  of  alliance  between  Prussia  and  England.     Hanover  put  under 

the  safeguard  of  the  King  of  Prussia. 

1756  May  i :  Alliance  between  Austria  and  France,  concluded  at  Versailles. 
1756  June  9  :  War  formally  declared  by  France  against  England. 
1756  August  17  :  Saxony  invaded  by  Prussia.     Beginning  of  the  Seven  Years'  War. 

1756  September  30 :  War  between  Austria  and  Prussia. 

1757  July  17 :  War  between  Great  Britain  and  Austria. 

1757  August  24  :  Hostilities  commenced  between  Sweden  and  Prussia. 
1757  September  10  :  Convention  of  Closterseven. 

1757  October  22 :  Treaty  of  peace  concluded  between  the  province  of  Pennsylvania,  and 
the  Delaware  and  the  Shawanee  Indians. 

1761  August  15:   The  Family  Compact  between  the  different  branches  of  the  House  of 

Bourbon,  signed  at  Paris. 

1762  January  23  :  War  declared  by  England  against  Spain,  in  consequence  of  the  Family 

Compact. 

1762  May  i :  The  Spanish  and  French  invade  Portugal,  and  an  army  sent  from  England 

to  assist  the  Portuguese. 

1763  Mays:  Peace  of  Petersburg,  between  Russia  and  Prussia.     Russia  restored  all  her 

conquests  to  Prussia. 

1762  May  22  :  Peace  of  Hamburg,  between  Sweden  and  Prussia. 
1762  May  23  :  War  declared  by  Portugal  against  Spain. 

1762  November  3  :  Preliminaries  of  Peace  signed  at  Fontainebleau,  between  France  and 

England. 

1763  February  10:  Peace  of  Paris  concluded  between   France,   Spain,  Portugal,   and 

Great  Britain.     Cession  of  Canada  by  France,  and  of  Florida  by  Spain. 
1763  February  15:  Peace  of  Hubertsberg,  between  Prussia,  Austria,  and  Saxony.     End 

of  the  Seven  Years'  War. 
1765  March  22  :  American  Stamp  Act. 

1768  February  24  :   Treaty  of  Warsaw,  between  Russia  and  Poland. 
1768  October:  War  between  Russia  and  Turkey. 

1771  January  22  :  A  treaty  concluded  between  Great  Britain  and  Spain,  confirming  the 

possession  of  the  Falkland  Islands  to  the  former. 

1772  February  17  :  Secret  convention  for  the  partition  of  Poland  by  Russia  and  Prussia. 

1773  August  5 :   Treaty  of  Petersburg  for  the  same  object,  between  Austria,  Russia,  and 

Prussia. 

1773  December  21 :  The  disturbances  in  America  began  with  the  destruction  of  the  tea  on 

board  three  sloops  at  Boston. 

1774  July  21 :  Peace  ofKutchuk  kainarji,  between  Russia  and  Turkey.    Crimea  declared 

independent,  Azoph  ceded  to  Russia,  and  freedom  of  commerce  and  navigation  of 
the  Black  Sea  granted. 

1774  December  5  :  Congress  opened  at  Philadelphia. 

1775  April  19:  Hostilities  commenced  at  Lexington,  North  America,  between   Great 

Britain  and  the  Colonists. 


602  CHRONOLOGICAL   TABLE    OF   TREATIES. 

1775  May  20:  The  American  provinces  sign  articles  of  union  and  alliance. 

1776  July  4:  American  declaration  of  independence. 

1778  February  6:  A  treaty  ratified  with  the  states  of  America,  by  France,  who  acknowl- 
edged their  independence. 

1778  March  13  :  War  between  England  and  France. 

1779  May'is  :  Peace  of  Teschen  ratified  between  Austria,  Saxony,  and  Prussia. 
'779  July  '3  !  Spain  joins  the  war  against  England. 

1780  December  20:  War  declared  by  Great  Britain  against  Holland. 

1780  July  9  and  August  i :  First  conventions  for  the  armed  neutrality,  between  Russia, 

Denmark,  and  Sweden.     December  24,  the  States-General  acceded. 

1781  May  8 :  King  of  Prussia  accedes  to  the  armed  neutrality. 

1781  October  9 :  The  Emperor  of  Germany  joins  the  armed  neutrality 

1782  November  30:  The  independence  of  America  acknowledged  by  England,  and  pre- 

liminaries of  peace  signed  at  Paris  between  the  British  and  American  Commis- 
sioners. 

1783  January  20:  Preliminary  articles  of  peace  signed  at  Versailles,  between  Great  Brit- 

ain, Spain,  and  France. 

1783  January  20 :  Crimea  passes  under  the  dominion  of  Russia. 
1783  September  2 :  Preliminaries  of  peace  between  Great  Britain  and  Holland,  signed 

at  Paris. 

1783  September  3  ;  Definitive  treaty  of  peace  between  Great  Britain  and  Amerioa,  signed 

at  Paris  ;  when  the  latter  power  was  admitted  to  be  a  sovereign  and  independent 
State.  On  the  same  day,  the  definitive  treaty  was  signed  at  Versailles  between 
Great  Britain,  France,  and  Spain. 

1784  June  20  :  Definitive  treaty  gf  ptact  between  Great  Britain  and  Holland,  signed  at 

Paris. 


PRINCIPAL  OFFICERS   OF  STATE. 


603 


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George  Sackville  Ger- 
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604 


GROWTH  OF  THE  NATIONAL  DEBT. 


THB  present  Funded  Debt  may  be  considered  to  have  its  root  in  the  iniquitous  measure 
of  shutting  up  the  Exchequer  in  1672,  when  the  revenue  pledged  for  the  payment  of  loans, 
amounting  to  .£1,328,000,  was  appropriated  to  other  purposes,  and  that  principal  sum  was 
never  redeemed.  Interest  was  duly  paid  till  1684,  and  was  then  withheld.  But  an  Act  of 
Parliament  was  passed  in  1699,  by  which,  after  1705,  the  creditors  were  to  receive  interest 
at  3  per  cent,  upon  the  original  amount,  to  be  redeemed  whenever  the  Government  should 
pay  a  moiety  thereof.  That  unredeemed  moiety  of  ^660,263  is  a  part  of  the  present  debt ; 
and  at  the  Revolution  there  was  about  .£400,000  outstanding  debt  in  the  shape  of  loans 
and  arrears. 

A  General  Abstract  of  the  Funded  and  Unfunded  Capital  of  the  National  Debt  of 
Great  Britain  and  Ireland,  and  of  the  charge  for  Interest  and  Management,  has  been 
recently  printed  by  order  of  the  House  of  Commons.  It  must  be  borne  in  mind,  that 
although  we  speak  of  Capital  and  Interest,  the  Public  Debt  consists  not  in  Capital  but  in 
Annuities — that  the  State,  having  borrowed  a  principal  sum  from  time  to  time,  guarantees 
certain  payments  in  the  shape  of  perpetual  or  terminable  annuities,  without  any  engage- 
ment to  replace  the  principal  represented  by  such  a  General  Abstract  of  the  National 
Debt.  We  give  the  results  of  this  abstract,  separating  the  Return  into  periods  concurrent 
with  marked  eras  of  history  ;  and  distinguishing  the  years  of  war  and  the  years  of  peace. 
In  the  progress  of  our  historical  narrative,  we  have  noticed  how  the  amount  of  Interes 
has  been  reduced,  by  the  judicious  measures  of  sir  Robert  Walpole,  and  by  those  of  Mr. 
Pelham  in  1749. 

WILLIAM  AND  MARY  ;  WILLIAM  III.;  ANNE. 


Unredeemed 
Capital. 

Interest  and 
Annuities. 

War  

g 

f        3  &     4 

I 

£ 

4  &    5 

(t 

.  > 

5  &    6 
6  &     7 

1693 

5,902,839 

507,101 
818,298 

« 

r       7  &    8 

8  &    9 

1695 
1696 

8,436,846 

887,  192 
1,086,971 

War  ) 

I-C 

Peace,  ) 

M 

9  &  10 

1697 

14,522,925 

1,322,519 

S  " 

1698 

15.445,416 

1,468,511 

< 

a 

1,423,539 

< 

.-3 

1,252,147 

i 

£ 

War     .  I 

i 

1702 

12,767,225 

1,215,324 

I    &      2 

1,158,460 

i 

2    &      3 

1,234,010 

< 

3    &      4 

i 

A     &         C 

i 

• 

C     &         fi 

< 

5  \ 

6   &       7 

I/OS 

1,722,479 

i 

I 

7  &     8 

1,921,477 

i 

8  &    9 

2,064,829 

« 

2,274,377 

i 

34,922,688 

3,034,078 

\^ar  » 

Peace  j 

ii  &  za 

1713 

34,699,847 

3,004,287 

12     &     11 

1714 

3*.  *75.46o 

3,o63,"J» 

GROWTH   OF   THE  NATIONAL   DEBT.  605 

GEOROB  I.  AND  II. — From  the  Peace  of  Utrecht  to  the  Peace  of  Aix-la-Chapelle. 


Unredeemed 
Capital. 

Interest  and 
Annuities. 

I   &  2 

£ 

£ 

2    &    1 

T7l6 

(( 

3  &  4 

Peace  i 

War  ) 

4  &  5 

17X8 

40,379»684 

2,965,889 

. 

?  &  6 

u 

6  &  7 

War  ) 

t° 

Peace  } 

o 

7  &  8 

1721 

54,405,108 

2,855,380 

n 

8  &  9 

2.807  c8i 

M 

2,728,080 

H 

11 

i( 

12  &  13 
n        1 

1726 

52,850,797 

2,739,628 

11 

i         1 

I727 

52,523,923 

2,360,934 

( 

I&2 

1728 

1 

2  &  3 

51,541,220 

I 

3  &  4 

( 

4   &    e 

( 

S  &  6 

49,836,638 

| 

6  &  7 

1 

7  &  8 

I 

8  &  9 

48,948,089 

1 

1 

^ 

IO  &    II 

47,231,299 

2,057,073 

«' 

1-1 

1738 

2,025,898 

Peace  ) 

&• 

„ 

War  ) 

1 

12   &    13 

1739 

2,030,884 

o 

13   &    14 

47,122,579 

2,051,572 

M 

14   &    15 

48,382,439 

u 

15  &  16 

51,847,323 

2,157,136 

11 

16  &  17 

2,181,586 

u 

17  &  18 

56,742,418 

2,293,302 

It 

18  &  19 

ly^J 

2,428,329 

11 

64,617,844 

2,650,231 

K 

2,882,548 

War  ) 

Peace  1 

21    &    22 

1748 

75,812,132 

3,165.765 

GEORGE  II.  AND  in. — From  the  Peace  of  Aix-la-Chapelle  to  the  Peace  of  Paris. 


Unredeemed 
Capital. 

Interest  and 
Annuities. 

\       22   &   23 

1749 

£ 

77,488,940 

£ 

3,204,858 

76,859,810 

( 

24   &   25 

1751 

77,197,026 

2,769,484 

1 

25    &   26 

76^431,683 

1 

»-< 

26   &  27 

1753 

75,034,815 

2,694,038 

1 

27   &   28 

1754 

72,128,282 

2,648,452 

1 

tf  J 

28   &   29 

1755 

72,505,572 

2,650,041 

Peace  ) 

War  J 

O 

29  &   30 

1756 

74,575,0^5 

2i753,566 

3O   &   31 

1757 

77,825,397 

2,736,254 

11 

31    &   32 

1758 

83,128,009 

2,918,707 

u 

91,273,459 

3,181,895 

u 

33  &  34      I 

u 

^ 

3,576,275 

H 

HH 

I    &    2 

1761 

114,294,987 

4,148,999 

U 

2    &    3 

1762 

126,794,937 

4,747,849 

War  t 

V 

Peace  ...         .  .  J 

o 

3  &  4 

1763 

132,716,049 

5»032,733 

606  GROWTH   OF   THE   NATIONAL    DEBT. 

GEORGE  III.— Prom  the  Peace  of  Paris  to  the  War  of  the  French  Revolution. 


Unredeemed 
Capital. 

Interest  and 
Annuities. 

Peace  

r     4  &  5 

1764 

£ 

133,287,940 

£ 

5,OO2,865 

5  &  6 

« 

6  &  7 

1766 

131,636,931 

4,887,346 

« 

7  &  8 

*    4»875,558 

« 

8  &  9 

1768 

4,870,  163 

« 

130,313,280 

tt 

(i 

128,986,012 

« 

u 

13  &  14 

Peace  ) 

War  ) 

14  &  is 

1774 

127,162,413 

4»  698,3*3 

15  &  16 

« 

M 

16  &  17 

u 

M 

17  &  18 

« 

& 

18  &  19 

I7?8 

« 

H 

20   &    21 

J/SO 

U 

I78t 

189,258,681 

<( 

1782 

War  ) 

Peace    ) 

23  &  24 

1783 

231,843,631 

9,065,585 

1784 

H 

25  &  26 

1785 

« 

26  &  27 

1786 

M 

27  &  28 

*787 

II 

28  &  29 

1788 

« 

1780 

H 

II 

31  &  32 

« 

ABSTRACT. 


Period. 

Debt. 

Interest. 

Years  of  War. 

Increese  of  Debt  in 
Years  of  War. 

£ 

£ 

£ 

1691 

3,130,000 

332,000 

1701 

12,552,486 

1,219,147 

1691  —  1697 

11,302,925 

*7'4 

36,175,460 

3.063,135 

1702—1713 

21,932,622 

1748 

75,812,132 

3,165,765 

(  1718  —  1721 
(  '740—1745 

14,025,324 
22,531,551 

1763 

132,716,049 

5,032,733 

1756—1763 

58,141,024 

1792 

239.663,421 

9,432,179 

'774—1783 

104,681,213 

.£232,704,759 

This  book  is  DUE 

1HBCHDID- 

|  MAP  09 1984 
MAR  1 8  1984 


OF  CAUPORNM  «BRARY 

Los  Angeles 


3  1158  00927  67" 5 


A     000189357     7 


